Oil and Chemical Spill Response

Australia has a national strategy for dealing with pollution from ships called the National Plan to Combat Pollution of the Sea by Oil and Other Noxious and Hazardous Substances, commonly referred to as the National Plan. NSW, along with all other States, the Northern Territory and Commonwealth Governments are signatories to the National Plan. NSW Maritime is responsible for ensuring the National Plan obligations are implemented in NSW. This includes integration with NSW emergency management plans so that the two sets of arrangements work together to provide efficient and effective response to shipping incidents and oil and chemical spills from ships.

The arrangements for how NSW will respond to and manage the cleanup of marine oil and chemical spills from shipping incidents are set out in the NSW State Waters Marine Oil and Chemical Spill Contingency Plan. The plan is also a sub-plan of the NSW Disaster Plan.

The three NSW Port Corporations have responsibility for responding to marine oil and chemical spills within their port area and a designated area of State coastal waters adjacent to their respective port as listed below, while NSW Maritime is responsible for responding to any shipping incident or marine oil or chemical spill along the North and South coasts of NSW.

From the Qld border to Fingal Head (Port Stephens)	NSW Maritime
Fingal Head to Catherine Hill Bay	Newcastle Ports Corporation
Catherine Hill Bay to Garie Beach	Sydney Ports Corporation
Garie Beach to Gerroa	Port Kembla Port Corporation
Gerroa to the Victoria border	NSW Maritime

 

NSW Maritime also maintains oil and chemical spill contingency plans for Lord Howe Island and the regional ports of Eden and Yamba. These plans are supported by:

Grounding of the Pasha Bulker at Nobbys Beach, Newcastle (2007)	Containment of the oil at HMAS Waterhen from the vessel Laura D'Amato (1999)

 

Oil Spill Response Atlas

NSW Maritime maintains the Oil Spill Response Atlas (OSRA). OSRA is a geographic information system that stores environmental, resource and textual data that can be used to assist planning and decision making during a marine incident response. OSRA is made available to the NSW Port Corporations and the Department Environment and Climate Change.

Training and Exercises

NSW Maritime seeks to ensure that other emergency services agencies understand the arrangements for responding to marine oil and chemical spills. To do this, NSW Maritime conducts several training courses in various locations along the NSW coast. Personnel from NSW Maritime are also available to make presentations at other forums.

NSW Maritime also exercises the NSW oil and chemical spill response arrangements regularly to ensure personnel are familiar with contingency planning. The different kinds of exercises can include desktop/hypothetical discussions and equipment deployment.

Equipment deployment demonstration at Exercise Oily Cap in March 2008