Contingency Planning

Water pollution incidents can vary in scale from something very minor such as the emptying of a sink into a river, to something as major as a fully laden oil tanker spilling its cargo into our coastal waters. Procedures and plans have to be flexible enough to ensure that an appropriate response is initiated to deal with different kinds of incidents from the smallest to the largest and everything in between.Some of the plans available to us include:

Some of the plans available to us include:

Incident Response Procedures

These detail the actions to be taken to minimise the effects of polluting substances being discharged into our inland and tidal waters. The aim of the procedures is to ensure that all incidents are thoroughly investigated and that a clean up is organised quickly, efficiently, where necessary.

The procedures describe a standard approach and provide enough information to enable those involved to how big or small the incident is, and the response necessary to tackle any incident. They do not describe clean up methods as in most cases these will be dictated by circumstances.

We have started to develop a Coastal Contingency Plan to cover the entire Northern Ireland coastline. Plans have also been produced for the major sea loughs, while detailed beach surveys were conducted during the summer of 2002 for the rest of the coast.

The procedures cover all water pollution incidents that occur in Northern Ireland and those which arise from pollution crossing the border from the Republic of Ireland. Incidents arising at sea are the responsibility of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which is an executive agency of the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions.

Ports and Harbours OPRC Plans

Harbour authorities, harbours and oil handling facilities of a certain size and/or turnover are obliged by law to produce plans to respond to marine pollution incidents in their waters. These plans are commonly referred to as OPRC Plans because they implement the obligations of the Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation International Convention(OPRC).

National Contingency Plan (NCP)

As a party to the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea, the UK has an obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment. The National Contingency Plan(NCP) is one of the measures that the UK has taken to meet this obligation.

Apart from saving human life, the key purpose of responding to a maritime incident is to protect human health as well as the marine and terrestrial environment.

Our Incident Procedures, along with the OPRC Plans run in tandem with the NCP to ensure an effective response to incidents of marine pollution. The NCP also outlines mutual support arrangements, should the resources held by us become exhausted, or overwhelmed, due to the size of the incident.

Pollution Response in Emergencies: Marine Impact Assessment and Monitoring ( PREMIAM project )

The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) is a partner in a cross-UK government project referred to as PREMIAM.  

The project is funded by the Department of Environment, Fisheries and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and aims to:

• Produce guidelines for the assessment and monitoring of the marine environment following pollution incidents
  
  
• Develop and maintain a network of partners from the scientific and emergency response community to deliver post-incident response and assessment.
  

PREMIAM is being co-ordinated by emergency response and impact assessment experts from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS). It has wide support from all the main government stakeholders and will fully engage the scientific and emergency response community in delivering its aims.

Further information on PREMIAM project