Identifying an oil spill is one thing. Being able to react properly is something entirely different.
“Based on satellite images and photographic evidence obtained from fishing vessels, it is our evaluation that the pollution could be caused by an oil release.” Such was the conclusion of the Danish military after it ended a week-long hunt to find and identify a substance reported on the surface of the water some 200 nautical miles off Greenland’s eastern coast on August 10.
This was upsetting news for environmentalists and others who spend time worrying about oil spills in the Arctic. Not surprisingly, they say last week’s incident in Greenland – both the spill (if that is indeed what it was) and the military’s inability to identify it – reveals the potentially catastrophic flaws in response plans.
“You could say this was a stress test of oil-spill response in the Arctic, and, obviously, it failed,” laments Richard Steiner, a biologist specialising in Arctic oil spills, and the author of a 2011 report looking into Carin Energy’s spill-response plans in connection with its operations in the waters of western Greenland.
In last week’s incident, the Danish military, which is responsible for responding to oil spills in Greenlandic waters, was first alerted by satellite images about the presence of a “dark pool” on the surface of the water some 200 nautical miles from the town of Tasiilaq.
Aerial reconnaissance and sightings by fishing vessels in the area confirmed the presence of the pool. Subsequent satellite images and flyovers kept the military apprised of the location, but by the time the Knud Rasmussen, a naval vessel, arrived in the area after five-days en route, it was prevented from finding the pool by ice-filled waters and high waves caused by a storm.
For Mr Steiner, the situation is a textbook example of how the two main challenges facing response efforts – distance and lack of resources – combine to make spill response all but impossible.
Denmark could have asked Iceland for assistance, but did not. According to the military, this was because it calculated in the end that the Knud Rasmussen could reach the site first. Their decision was based partly on the fact that one of Iceland’s coast-guard vessels is currently patrolling the Mediterranean as part of the EU efforts to prevent illegal migration.
Asking for help when in need has otherwise been highlighted as particularly well-suited to maritime operations in the Arctic, where vast distances and sparse resources might mean that another country’s vessel could able to reach the site of a spill or accident first.
Although the Arctic Council’s 2011 ‘Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic’ does not require states to help out in the event of a maritime incident, it does make it mandatory to notify all other Arctic states when in the event of a spill. It also sets guidelines for how states that help out in an operation should be compensated.
Mr Steiner, like other critics, suggests that last week’s incident reveals that the agreement gives a false sense of protection. “Regardless of what the Greenland spill was, the situation highlights that even if you have agreements in place there’s no guarantee they will do you any good.”
Those who would argue differently suggest that he is only partly right. “There is no lack of will,” says one official. “It is a lack of equipment.”
Getting more equipment, despite the increasing activity in the Arctic is unlikely, reckons Rasmus Dahlberg, a PhD fellow at Beredskabsstyrelsen, Denmark’s emergency management agency. “Preparedness and response is not a political priority. There are no votes in supporting something that, when it works best, doesn’t get noticed.”
Instead, he suggests that the equipment states do have must be deployed as effectively as possible. This can be done, in part, by keeping lines of communication between countries open at the operational level, and by making sure that responsibilities are well understood.
A big help in this area are early warning systems. Satellites, for example, made it possible to detect whatever it was in Greenlandic waters, but they could not keep a fixed eye on them. Drones or other technologies can be used to keep track of spills over a longer period, which would make it possible to identify them perhaps a full 24 hours faster. Like with other types of additional resources, however, funding remains a hurdle.
Lower tech, but perhaps equally useful, would be to equip and train communities to provide immediate response to spills, especially those that threaten the shore. For spills further out to sea, they can provide officials with initial information about a spill that could help determine the shape of the response. “The information they provide in this situation may be incomplete, but it would be better than nothing,” Mr Dahlberg says.
Last week’s incident may indeed have been worrisome, but that does not mean it can’t prove useful for officials from Arctic states.
One of the jobs of the Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response working group, an Arctic Council body, is to identify the challenges posed by maritime activity in the region.
The experiences learned in the Greenlandic incident will go into its consideration as it seeks to develop recommendations for preventing spills. Amy Merten, the group’s chair, warns, however, that people must be realistic about their expectations.
“All the Arctic states understand that we don’t have adequate capability. So when they decide how to respond to an incident they need to take things like location and the apparent urgency into account.”
While a large spill, she notes, would automatically result in ships being pulled away from other activities, responding to mystery spills like the one in Greenland last week are a tougher call.
That is partly because alerts could turn out to be false alarms, and countries are hesitant to commit assets that might be needed elsewhere.
Size, location and proximity to the shore all weigh into the decision when coming up with a response, she says. As does cost. But, in general, greater the risk, the more assets (and thus a bigger price tag) states are willing to commit to a response.
“There are agreements are in place, and countries will try to do what they can in the event of a spill,” Ms Merten says, “but the situation is more complicated than it seems.”
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(Photo: Arktisk Kommando)
Source: The Arctic Journal
