BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

Furthermore, it is the intention and the aim of Volume III to provide decision makers,
national operation control authorities and on-scene coordinators with an appropriate tool to
select those strategic and tactic countermeasures, which are the most effective ones, taking
into account the present state of the art and local circumstances.
Active and passive countermeasures in case of a major outflow of harmful substances must
be taken immediatelv to be successful as
many substances constitute a serious threat to the marine environment and related
interests of Member States to the Helsinki Convention
many substances change rapidly their states of aggregation when released into the
environment by evaporation and dissolution and consequently their retention times at
St%.
These criteria and time limits demand a high standard of preparedness and readiness of
operational control authorities and strike teams.
This Volume III of the Manual therefore contains information and knowledge about the
transport of chemicals and related risks in the Baltic Sea Area, as well as suitable
combatting methods edited in
Chapter 1, to be used mainly for the development of national strategies. This chapter
contains general information about the transportation pattern, the related risks and
outflow estimates. It also contains general information on the physical properties of the
chemicals and guidance for the determination of response and combatting methods.
When adding Chapter 3 into this Volume some parts of Chapter 1 were amended to
cover also incidents involving packaged dangerous goods;
Chapter 2, to be used mainly by decision makers at scene and by operational control
authorities. This chapter contains detailed information on the transported chemicals and
their properties and the regional environmental hazards;
Chapter 3, to be used mainly for the development of national strategies. This chapter
contains, in addition to Chapters 1 and 2, specific information needed for response to
incidents involving dangerous packaged goods. It contains general information on the
transportation pattern of packaged dangerous goods and the related risk estimation. It
also contains general information on the properties of the packages and their risks of
being damaged in the sea water. It describes the response and salvage methods which
may be used as well as the specific information sources. The data sheets contained in
Chapter 2 can, with some limitations, be used as an information source also when
packaged dangerous goods are concerned.
335
Updated, May 1993
Amendment No. 2