New Zealand oil spill response strategy - Maritime New Zealand

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All New Zealand marine waters are designated as pre-approved for dispersant application, unless specifically excluded in either a regional plan or the National Marine Oil Spill Contingency Plan. In all cases, the NOSC has the authority to use dispersant even in excluded areas, if this will lead to the greatest net environmental benefit. Oil Spill Dispersant Guidelines for use in New Zealand have been produced to assist the decision making process. 4 Shoreline Response Once oil has reached the shore, the environmental impact and cost of cleaning are often much greater than if the spill had been dealt with at sea. The primary options for shoreline response are: • Pre-cleaning (to improve access and reduce waste); • Mechanical and/or manual clean-up; • Natural recovery; • Bioremediation (using living organisms to speed oil degradation). A recent innovation to shoreline response has been the development of Shoreline Clean-up Assessment Treatment (SCAT). This involves delineating the impacted coast into homogenous segments, and gathering data on each to assist prioritisation. This process can be augmented by prespill segmentation at the contingency planning stage, to speed responses during an incident. Wildlife Response The aim of wildlife response is to avoid, remedy or mitigate any detrimental impacts on wildlife during an oil pollution response. This primarily concerns marine and coastal birds, reptiles, and where safety allows, marine mammals, due to their susceptibility, protection status and community expectations. While the OSC is directly responsible for ensuring there is a credible and effective wildlife response, additional specific expertise will be needed. Maritime New Zealand has contracted Massey University to develop and maintain a Tier 3 wildlife response operational plan annexed to the National Plan, a national wildlife treatment facility, and personnel and equipment for use during spill response. The Department of Conservation and Tangata Whenua should also be involved where protected or culturally significant species (see Appendix 5) are threatened, and as key conservation management stakeholders. Wildlife response will, whenever possible adhere to international best practice protocols while prioritising human safety as well as animal welfare. Where appropriate, it may involve exclusion (‘hazing’), and/or pre-emptive capture. In all cases, monitoring of rescued and released wildlife should be an integral component of the rehabilitation process providing feedback to improve efficiency of ongoing operations. Should a spill occur whereby there is no direct response action to contain and recover the oil, wildlife response may be the only intervention activity undertaken. Wildlife response costs authorised by the OSC are fully recoverable from the spiller, under both the Maritime Transport Act and the Civil Liability Convention 1969. It is recognised that oiled wildlife may be discovered after other response efforts have ceased, and this should be taken into account during de-escalation and termination. Oil Spill Response Capability Though an effective response capability has been firmly established in New Zealand under the previous response strategies, every effort should be made to ensure continuous development, with a strong commitment to build experience in personnel. Equipment Maritime New Zealand will allocate sufficient basic equipment to the regional councils to respond to spills identified in the risk assessment as likely to occur within their individual boundaries. The amount of equipment deployed in the regions depends on the potential size of oil spills identified and the type of product e.g., those with major oil terminals have more specialist equipment. This gives each region 4 Available on request from Maritime New Zealand or the Cawthron Institute. 18
the independence both to deal with minor spills and to mount a credible first response to more significant incidents. Maritime New Zealand retains much of the larger, specialised equipment in its inventory for rapid deployment anywhere in the country. Where equipment is deployed regionally, a contractual agreement between the regional council and Maritime New Zealand is established. This outlines the agreed standards for maintenance, management, deployment, storage and use of that equipment. The allocation of equipment will be subject to regular review, with reference both to the risk assessment and consultation with the regions, to ensure suitable levels and appropriate types are distributed at the correct locations. The key considerations are flexibility and the ability to quickly redeploy equipment either regionally or nationally. This may also include the development of rapid deployment facilities within each region as an immediate response tool, where appropriate and necessary. Planning for new equipment purchase and replacement will be undertaken by Maritime New Zealand, in consultation with OPAC and both national and regional OSCs. All equipment paid for by the Oil Pollution Fund (OPF) remains the property of Maritime New Zealand as part of the overall national oil spill response equipment inventory, regardless of any allocations to the regions. As such, it must always be available for emergency redeployment to other regions in the event of a spill. Some of the national inventory of response equipment, including that allocated to the regions, is available for limited hire to outside parties with the approval of the Director. While hired, the equipment must still be available for emergency deployment should a major marine spill occur. Under contract, Massey University’s Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences has established wildlife treatment facilities at the Palmerston North Campus, and developed specialist equipment for deployment during a response. These will continue to be maintained according to the terms of the contract. Maritime New Zealand maintains a complete database of all national and regional oil spill response equipment, including dispersant stocks. All response equipment, whether stored at regional or national centres, will be maintained according to standards specified in maintenance plans developed by Maritime New Zealand to ensure readiness, availability and protection against biosecurity risks during redeployment. All items of Maritime New Zealand equipment used in Tier 2 and 3 spill responses have either hire rates or replacement values (where consumed), and payment of these costs is the responsibility of the spiller. Personnel Personnel requirements for an oil spill response depend on the size and complexity of the incident. Maritime New Zealand maintains a core of approximately 400 responders who have received training at various levels. Many of these people would form the initial response to a marine oil spill in their region. They are predominantly regional council, district council and port company employees, and are identified in the regional plans. At the national level, they are also available for a major response in either their own or any other region. This arrangement gives New Zealand a large pool of trained responders. Oil spill response experience over recent years has highlighted the need for a greater degree of structure and organisation for response to Tier 3 incidents. Tier 3 incidents are inevitably more significant and demanding with regard to impact and resource requirements. Accordingly, effective response preparedness for Tier 3 incidents requires significant planning and preparation, including the initial response team size and structure, identification of available response personnel, standard operating procedures for mobilisation and deployment, and appropriate training and exercising. Further development of Maritime New Zealand's Tier 3 response capability, and in particular initial response organisation and structure, is being undertaken and will progress through the current strategic period. 19
Page 1: JULY 2006
Page 4 and 5: FOREWORD The New Zealand Marine Oil
Page 6 and 7: THE NEW ZEALAND MARINE OIL SPILL RE
Page 8 and 9: Risk Assessment National marine oil
Page 10 and 11: Spill Consequences A framework for
Page 12 and 13: The Oil Pollution Advisory Committe
Page 14 and 15: All vessels that meet the criteria
Page 16 and 17: (MOSRRG) reviews Tier 1 & 2 inciden
Page 18 and 19: de-escalated. This is to ensure con
Page 22 and 23: Training Maritime New Zealand is re
Page 24 and 25: In all cases, the OSC must keep str
Page 26 and 27: In addition, Maritime New Zealand w
Page 28 and 29: Appendix 2 - Key Functions and Resp
Page 30 and 31: Appendix 4 - Key Functions and Resp
Page 32 and 33: Ministry for the Environment • To
Page 34 and 35: Appendix 6 - International Agreemen
Page 36 and 37: operations for the purpose of savin
Page 38 and 39: ACRONYMS AMOSC Australian Marine Oi
Page 40 and 41: Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) All m
Page 42 and 43: On-scene commander (OSC) The person

New Zealand oil spill response strategy - Maritime New Zealand

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