Med lacks unified policy for deepwater oil spill

As the government prepares to start marketing new licences next month for oil exploration in Maltese waters, the director of the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre (Rempec) has warned that the Mediterranean region lacks a unified policy on dealing with a major deep-water oil spill.

“Up to now – as seen with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – the main strategy to deal with oil pollution of that size is chemical dispersion. But in the Mediterranean there is no definite policy among countries on the use of dispersants,” Rempec director Frédéric Hebert told The Times ahead of Rempec’s 10th Meeting of the Focal Points, to be held in Malta from tomorrow until Thursday.

At the moment the response to such a spillage depends on national policy and most Mediterranean countries are not in favour of chemical dispersion, which is controversial due to the deliberate introduction into the sea of an additional pollutant.

Mr Hebert thinks the issue needs to be raised at regional level, “because if something like Deepwater Horizon happens in the Mediterranean, unfortunately I think we would have to consider the use of dispersants and we need to know the position of the countries on that”.

Rempec, which has been based in Malta since 1976, is a central component in the Mediterranean regional effort to counter marine pollution.

Its roots lie in the establishment of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) in 1975, following the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (Uunep) Regional Seas Programme, and it is administered by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Its activities in the past have mainly concerned the prevention and response to pollution from ships and shipping activities, but Mr Hebert said offshore oil activities are now on the front page of its agenda since the dedicated Offshore Protocol of the Barcelona Convention entered into force on March 24.

“There is quite an appetite from some contracting parties for Rempec to be involved in developing strategies for dealing with offshore oil pollution,” Mr Hebert said.

“Oil pollution from ships and oil pollution from offshore activities are quite different in terms of quantity and engineering. Up to now we don’t have engineers familiar with offshore exploration and production. We have to take this into account if contracting parties ask Rempec to deal with offshore activities and we will have to acquire the appropriate skills.”

Mr Hebert also said Rempec is not overly concerned about Malta marketing licences for exploration at the moment. “We are trying to follow the situation. Up to now we have not been involved in this sort of activity so we don’t have a complete picture of the situation.”

Rempec plays an advisory role in helping Mediterranean countries set up national contingency plans for dealing with marine pollution. One of the only countries in the region currently without an active plan is Malta, but Mr Hebert understands Malta’s plan is now finalised.

“It has been a long process but we understand it is concluded and decisions have been taken at cabinet level. We are waiting for the legal notice to be published so the plan can be implemented,” he said.

“It’s a long process to develop and implement a plan,” he replied when asked why Malta had taken so long. “You need to consult many entities and it’s difficult to decide which bodies are responsible for responding to different things. We can advise countries on this.” Rempec is also heavily involved in trying to raise awareness of the dangers of ships introducing alien species into the Mediterranean when discharging ballast water, and it is pushing coastal states to ratify the international convention that deals with this issue.

“With the support of regional countries, we are trying to develop a strategy to implement this convention because you need to have a system to exchange information.

“You need to know where a ship is coming from, where it did its ballast water exchange, what species to look for and if there is an occurrence of the species somewhere else in the Mediterranean.”

Dangers of invasive species include the potential depletion of indigenous fish stocks and threats to public health from alien organisms, he said.

www.rempec.org