20.8.2014

Kalervo Jolma, Heli Haapasaari Pollution response Finnish Environment Institute

Oil and chemical spill response in - Current situation

In autumn 2009 the Government presented to the Parliament the "Challenges of the Baltic Sea and Baltic Sea Policy" report. The report includes all the main factors that SYKE had indicated in its development plan as the measures needed in order to enhance the marine pollution response capability during years 2009-2018.

The Government has set following target spills that Finland together with neighbouring countries should be able to recover in three day in open water conditions and in 10 day in ice conditions: 30 000 tonnes, Archipelago Sea 15 000 tonnes (due to deepened route this target value has been later set to 20 000 tonnes) and 5 000 tonnes. In archipelago and coastal areas oil spill response measures must be able to prevent oil from drifting into the inner archipelago and recovering the oil within a month. In coastal areas the objective is to clean most of the shoreline within three months of the accident. These targets should be achieved by year 2015.

Below is a list of the enhancements that have already have been implemented or which will be implemented in near future:

- New Act on Oil Pollution Response came into force in January 2010. (http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/2009/en20091673.pdf). New decree came into force in April 2014. - The renewal of the four regional and 22 local contingency plans will take place 2014-2016. - Navy's oil spill response vessel HALLI´s modernization (12 million €) was completed in summer 2010. - A new Navy multi-purpose vessel LOUHI (48 million €) with oil and chemical response equipment was completed in early 2011. Vessel is designed to be able to recover oil also in heavy weather conditions including ice conditions. The vessel has also new type of oil in ice response system (2 million €), consisting of four modular brush units. Each unit can work also independently. Two similar oil in ice response units will be ordered in 2014. - Border Guard‘s new multi-purpose vessel TURVA (97 million €) was completed in spring 2014. This multipurpose vessel has also oil and chemical spill response equipment. - Finnish Transport Agency has ordered a new multipurpose (123 million €) that will have also oil response equipment. Vessel will start its operations during winter 2015-2016. - The environmental surveillance/oil spill detection equipment has been upgraded for the two surveillance aircraft (a total of 5 million €.). In addition the other surveillance equipment was modernized in 2012 (6.5 million € ), these devices also serve the oil spill surveillance and mapping task. - Two new vessels with oil spill response equipment have entered in spill response readiness in 2014, they are located in Kotka archipelago (m/s OTAVA) and Hiittinen area in Archipelago Sea (m/s STELLA) and have been contracted for years 2014-2022. - Modernization of oil recovery vessel HYLJE has started in spring 2014 (12 million €) and will be completed in 2015. - The properties and requirements of a new, 15-24 metres long oil recovery boat type have been defined. According to the development plan 10 such boats would be needed in order to enhance the recovery operations in the archipelago areas. - Designing and construction of new type of towable storage tanks (100 m³ and 200 m³) has been completed (3 units ready) - The Oil Pollution Protection charge has been increased to threefold over the period 2010 - 2015.

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- SYKE has tendered 3,6 km high sea boom in 2011 and additional 5km in 2012. Finnish government has now 22 km of high sea boom in nine different depots. Rescue Service Districts have about 80 km coastal boom and 30 km sea boom. - The oil spill situation awareness system BORIS 2 has been taken into operational use in 2013. - EU-funded HELCOM project BRISK/BRISK-RU has been completed - National contingency plan has been published in 2011.

In addition to the response enhancements implemented by Finland also the neighbouring countries have enhanced their oil recovery with new vessels during the past few years: - State Marine Pollution Control, Salvage & Rescue Administration of the Russian Federation (SMPCSA) has received new Search And Rescue vessels: SPASATEL KAREV in 2012, SPASATEL ZABORSHCHIKOV in 2013, SPASATEL KAVDEYKIN in 2013 and SPASATEL DEMIDOV in 2014 . These vessels are equipped also with oil recovery equipment and one of them, KAREV is placed at the Baltic Sea. Additionally totally three even larger SAR vessels (7MW) with oil spill response equipment will be built. First ship 2015 in Amur yard, two additional in Wismar (Germany) yard 2015. One of these vessels may be placed at the Baltic Sea. - Russian Ministry of Transport received the new oblique icebreaker BALTIKA with oil recovery equipment in spring 2014. - In 2012 Estonian Police and Border Guard received the new multi-purpose vessel KINDRAL KURVITS that is equipped also with oil recovery equipment. - European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has contracted icebreaker KONTIO for oil spill response tasks in the Northern Baltic Sea. EMSA has equipped KONTIO with oil recovery equipment. - Swedish Coast Guard has received three new large oil recovery vessels (KBV001-KBV003) and four smaller ones (KBV031-KBV034).

In addition to new response vessels there is need to modernize the existing vessels and acquire other response equipment for open sea as well as to the archipelago area. After the above listed new builds have entered in pollution response readiness the capacity enhancement work will focus on other open sea equipment and in the recovery capacity in the outer archipelago.

Finnish recovery capacity is good when comparing to the other Baltic States. Further improvements are still needed in order to meet challenges posed by the increasing marine pollution risk. The required level can be achieved by 2016.

The main responsibility in pollution response belongs to SYKE, the Rescue Service Districts are responsible for oil pollution response in coastal areas. Finland has been able to obtain and maintain its oil spill response vessel fleet of 16 vessels economically utilizing the principle of multiuse. The Rescue Service Districts have about 150 oil spill response boats that are utilised in coastal oil pollution response. The strength of the Finnish response is that also the state actors - the Navy, Border Guard and fairway maintenance vessel fleet of a state owned company Meritaito Co - have participated in the pollution response readiness. The oil response equipment of the Rescue Services is mostly financed by the National Oil Pollution Fund.

Oil spill response has been responsibility of the environmental administration since 1983. During this period, the amount of oil transport at sea has increased by more than tenfold and the risk of large accident has increased many folds. Fortunately, during the same period our ability to prevent and to respond to major accidents has been improved and will be further improved. The development and successfulness in the response operations are the result of many things, perhaps the most important of which is a common understanding of the goal – preventing environmental disasters and protecting the environment. International co-operation in the fight against marine pollution in the Baltic Sea has been excellent