Revitalizing Baltic Sea procedures for marine spill response

25 November 2014

Major revisions of the internationally agreed procedures for marine pollution response in the Baltic Sea region, the HELCOM Response Manual, will be considered at the HELCOM Response Working Group meeting in Tallinn, beginning today.

The 3-day Meeting collects ministries and authorities with operational responsibilities on marine pollution preparedness and response in the coastal countries of the Baltic Sea and the EU. It will be chaired by Bernt Stedt, Swedish Coastguard.

The original Manual on marine pollution incidents was adopted in 1983, based on a series of HELCOM Recommendations dealing with international warning, reporting, communication and command systems for the Baltic Sea region developed since the 1970s. These agreed operational procedures and best practices for the Baltic Sea are followed, exercised and revised on a regular basis by the coastal countries and the EU.

Today the Manual consists of three parts: Volume I on general issues, such as national contact information, procedures for alarm and requests for international assistance, aerial surveillance and financial aspects of international operations; Volume II on spills involving hazardous substances; and Volume III on response the shore.

Changes considered to the Response Manual this week include the first drafting for a complete overhaul of the sections on hazardous substances response. Response to accidents involving not oil, but one of the many other hazardous substances transported in the region, involve a complex range of measures and procedures. Technological advances, such as instrumentation and new “safe platform” vessel designs, have been rapid during recent years, but also global experience from response incidents has accumulated.

Other parts of the Manual which will be looked at more closely include the procedures in situations where pollution has reached the shore. The international cooperation regarding on-shore response in the Baltic Sea has received recent attention from HELCOM. Last year, the coastal countries and the EU adopted a series of related amendments to the Helsinki Convention, the legal international basis of the HELCOM cooperation, as well as a new section (Volume III) of the Manual targeting on-shore response.

The Meeting of the HELCOM Response group will also consider revisions to the minimum requirements and best practices for the aerial surveillance in the Baltic Sea region carried out by the coastal countries.

Other topics in the Meeting include national reports on recent response operations since the last meeting in January; a draft for a new HELCOM Recommendation on marine pollution incident reporting and requests for assistance; and the report of the HELCOM Balex Delta 2014 operational exercise in Ventspils, Latvia.

Meeting site. All documents will be available after the meeting.