NATIONAL CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR MARINE POLLUTION FROM SHIPPING AND OFFSHORE INSTALLATIONS
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9. ENVIRONMENTAL ADVICE AND MONITORING
Associated
with Appendix K (Environment Group)
9.1 The response to any maritime incident in the UK requiring a regional or national response involves the establishment of an Environment Group. All those involved in operations at sea (including salvage) and shoreline clean up need timely environmental advice. The Environment Group advises on environmental aspects and public health impacts of the incident and associated response operations both real and potential. The Group is a common facility, that provides comprehensive advice to all response units. Most importantly, the Group membership must represent all environmental and public health interests considered to be at risk.
9.2 The role of the Environment Group itself is purely advisory but the Departments and Agencies from which individual members are drawn, continue to exercise their statutory powers. On some occasions these powers operate via the individual present on the Environment Group and on other occasions via other members of that organisation. For example, while the formal dispersant approval process is outside the remit of the Environment Group and, in compliance with statute, continues to be made by Defra/SEERAD/EHS, after consultation with the appropriate statutory nature conservation body, discussion about the wisdom of continuing dispersant use in any incident could take place within the Group. The statutory nature conservation body (or fishery authority in the case of EHS) should consult locally with members of the standing Environment Group. Paragraph 9.7 describes the obligations on the response units to consult with the Environment Group.
9.3 As well as provision of expert advice based on immediately available and pre-prepared data and information, there may also be a need to encourage the collection of real time environmental data by the relevant government agencies. Such environmental data may provide accurate baseline data of vulnerable environmental features immediately before impact of the pollution plume, so that risks can be identified and the damage can be quantified. The Group also needs to track the success of preventive and counter pollution measures throughout the incident, and to begin to assess the overall long-term environmental impact. The Group is therefore dependent on timely provision, from each response unit, of all relevant information on the fate and behaviour of pollutants, and each units’ forecasts, plans, actions and outcomes.
9.4 It is the responsibility of the MCA to initiate the process for the formation of the Environment Group. The core membership of the Group comes from the relevant statutory nature conservation agency, environmental and rural affairs department (including fisheries), environmental regulator, local public health body and (in the case of incidents beyond territorial waters) the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). The Group may also include a representative from MCA. The Group may also consider that a representative from a relevant local authority or national park authority with appropriate skills may be beneficial. The Group chair is selected as appropriate.
9.5 In the simplest incidents, the chair acts as a conduit of advice (probably by telephone) to the SOSREP and all activated response units. The chair is also free to offer any environmental advice without seeking confirmation by a specialist member of the Group if confident that the advice is sound. That advice does not necessarily represent the view of the chair’s parent organisation and does not exempt them from any future enforcement activities. The chair also decides when it is necessary to convene the Environment Group at the scene of the incident and appoints an Environment Liaison Officer for each response unit established. The complexity of an incident may require of the chair different skill sets according to the technical and, or managerial, expertise required. It is for the Standing Groups, in their planning process, to determine criteria on what qualities are required of the chair in a range of circumstances, i.e. whether the incident is minor or major, relatively simple to more complex.
9.6 As the incident develops in terms of magnitude and/or complexity, the chair and core members decide whether to expand the Group’s membership to include representatives of other relevant bodies, such as public health (if not already a core member), animal welfare groups or other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in order to ensure the provision of expert advice appropriate to a specific incident. The role of the Chair in a major and/or complex incident will most likely be more managerial in nature, in that case the Chair does not represent their parent organisation but the wider environmental good.
9.7 Response units are instructed to make all reasonable efforts to consult the Environment Group, or its chair, about any proposed action that is likely to have lasting impact on the environment. If time does not permit the response unit to consult before acting, it must circulate a written report to the Environment Group and all other response units as soon as possible after the action (or decision) has been taken. This report must detail the actions taken, the reasons for taking them, and their anticipated outcome.
9.8 The Environment Group should record its advice in writing and circulate it to the response units as soon as practicable. Where a response unit does not follow such advice, it is instructed to record the reasons for not doing so, and to inform the group, as soon as practicable.
9.9 If a marine pollution incident is expected to have a significant impact on the marine environment, or the shoreline, the Environment Group will promptly make arrangements to begin to monitor and assess the impact in the longer term. Standing Environment Groups, as part of their planning process should consider the collection and collation of appropriate baseline data in order to facilitate early implementation of assessment of environmental impacts and agree a formal methodology in how such studies should be organised.
9.10 Appendix K gives further details of how the Environment Group is to be established, its terms of reference, membership and functions.