Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Service
Emergency Response Delivery
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Introduction
Industry, provincial, federal and local governments share the responsibility to prepare for and respond to an environmental emergency. Responding agencies and industry also generally share a common goal — to protect people, property and the environment. Response usually begins with industry and local government and a bottom-up escalation occurs if capacity is insufficient. The provincial government is unique in that it must be prepared to take over an incident should the Responsible Party (spiller/polluter) be unknown or defaults on its obligation, or if local government is unable to cope with the situation.
More detailed Information on the response delivery roles of the Responsible Party, Ministry of Environment and other government agencies is available below.
Role of the Responsible Party 1
Preparedness
Industry facilities that store, manufacture, transport, recycle or handle dangerous goods, hazardous wastes, or hazardous chemicals should prepare a response (contingency) plan to respond to emergencies involving the accidental release of these substances into the environment. Such facilities can include, but are not limited to waste landfills, recycling facilities (e.g., plastics, tires, paint, pesticide, and batteries), as well as chemical and petroleum bulk storage or transportation facilities. Industrial sectors that response planning applies to include the mining, forestry, manufacturing, retail, and oil and gas sectors.
Response plans should identify potential hazards, develop systems for preventing accidents, provide appropriate mechanisms for minimizing risk, loss, and damage resulting from such incidents (i.e. reduce exposure to communities), and provide an incident management structure to guide response activities. Guidelines have been established by the Ministry to assist industry in preparing emergency response plans (see Guidelines for Industry Emergency Response Plans). Response plans help ensure that when a spill occurs, the responsible party is able to launch an effective response.
Response
When a spill occurs, the Responsible Party (RP) is expected to report the spill if a reportable level has been spilled into the environment and implement the operational decisions set out in the emergency response plan. Often the RP will have either a contractor (e.g., Western Canada Marine Response Corporation/Burrard Clean Operations) that can be called in to respond to the spill or will have an Incident Management Team set up in case a spill occurs. The RP is expected to take reasonable steps to contain the spill and to restore the environment to its original condition.
1 The Responsible Party (RP) is the person or company in possession, control, or charge of the released pollutant or the facility (e.g. dyke, landfill, etc).
Role of the Ministry
Preparedness
The Ministry of Environment undertakes many preparedness activities. To guide response efforts in the event of an environmental emergency, the Ministry’s Environmental Emergency Management Program:
- Develops Emergency Response Plans that define the scope and structure of the provincial government’s involvement when responding to emergencies. The issues addressed by the response plans include waste handling, wildlife rescue, shoreline cleanup and assessment, etc.
- Prepares technical documents to guide response efforts in specific situations.
- Develops Incident Command System (ICS) operational guidelines to assist Environmental Emergency Response Officers (EEROs) and Incident Management Team members in the field.
- Trains and supports EEROs, Incident Management Team members and Technical Specialists to ensure response practices are technically sound.
- Conducts or participates in exercises to test response plans and the ability to work with other response agencies during an emergency situation.
- Participates in inter-governmental and cross-jurisdictional response planning and liaison.
- Develops policies, procedures and legislation to guide emergency response.
Response
1. Monitoring and Augmenting an Industry-led Response
During an industry-led response, the main focus of the Ministry is on ensuring the RP is successful in responding to the spill. The two primary and most common roles of government during a spill involving a RP (spiller/polluter) is monitoring and augmenting. A third role is actually taking over the incident and assuming overall management control and responsibilities. These roles are defined as:
- Monitoring - ensuring response is adequate and meets provincial expectations. The monitoring role also includes establishing public safety and environmental protection priorities, and/or
- Augmenting - providing provincial resources (equipment and expertise) to the Responsible Party and/or federal or local government, if requested, and/or
- Taking Over - assuming full response management role in the event there is no Responsible Party (spiller/polluter) or if the response is inadequate.
On arriving at the incident site, the first determination is whether the provincial response will be one of monitoring and/or augmenting, OR taking over the response. This determination will greatly affect the level of provincial personnel involved (from a few responders to just monitor, to potentially a hundred to take over a major event). The degree of local government and federal government support will also affect levels of provincial government involvement.
If the Ministry incurs costs while augmenting or taking over the response, the RP is expected to pay for the costs incurred by the province when assistance is provided (polluter-pay-principle). The Ministry has spill cost recovery legislation to help achieve this objective. In addition, the RP must provide the incident structure to manage provincial resources and/or accommodate government integration.
2. Taking an Active Role
Provincial response ensues when there is a threat to provincial resources, the local/industry response capability is exceeded, there is a strong public expectation, and/or when requested by another jurisdiction. Provincial response most often occurs when an incident takes place in BC that poses a threat to the province’s people, infrastructure and/or environment. Each provincial emergency response is conducted in accordance with a provincial-level response plan, such as for water-related hazards, marine oil spills, inland oil spills and hazardous material incidents.
In the field, assessment, advice and direction is provided by the Ministry’s Environmental Emergency Response Officers (EEROs). There is normally between 16 and 20 EEROs located across the province in nine regions. The high level of technical training in hazardous material operations provided to the EEROs helps the Ministry to undertake the most technically sound and proven response practices. For water-related incidents, response is provided by regional staff trained in flood protection and dyke inspection. EEROs and other regional personnel are at the receiving end of over 4,000 emergency notifications reported annually by industry and the public using the Province's 24 hour emergency reporting number 1-800-663-3456. The majority of these incidents are spills of dangerous goods, followed by water-related and other incidents.
The determination of whether an EERO undertakes a field response is guided by the Ministry's Environmental Emergency Program's policies and procedures. Generally, only about a third of spill notifications result in a field response. Spills that are of low risk (e.g. inside a facility yard), known to be adequately managed by local government (e.g. fire department) and/or by a competent company are not attended. An EERO’s training, experience and local knowledge are a large part of making the decision to respond. Essentially, EEROs take a "risk-based" approach to spill response as they can not attend all reported spills.
For large, complex incidents, such as the Cheakamus and Queen of the North incidents, an Incident Management Team may be employed. There are currently two IMTs in the Province. The team members, who are mostly Ministry staff, receive specialized training in spill response, participate in training exercises and provide incident response as needed. Technical Specialists and Support personnel are also available to the IMTs if required. These teams are organized and deployed at the site level according to the BC Emergency Response Management System (BCERMS). BCERMS is based on the international Incident Command System (ICS).
3. Provincial Participation in a Multi-agency Response
When high risk environmental emergencies occur, the Ministry must work with other response agencies. Cooperation with other jurisdictions, such as federal agencies, local governments and industry, is achieved through the establishment of unified command and response team integration.
4. Situation Reporting
The Ministry provides situation reports during the course of an incident and/or after an incident has occurred. On-going notification is important during a response, as it is preferable to relying on the media for situation reporting analysis. The Ministry strives for public transparency of situation reports, therefore for large events the progress of the incident may be posted on the internet. Interpretation of the response is provided by media releases.
5. Post Incident Review
The Ministry holds and/or participates in post incident reviews after each incident and response. Evaluation allows the Ministry to benefit from the learning experience the incident provided and to take follow-up action as necessary.
Role of Other Government Agencies
Local government has a responsibility to assess local risks, prepare emergency response plans, and to have a delivery capability commensurate with the types and level of hazard that exist in their community. When an emergency occurs, response normally begins with local government (e.g. local fire department) and a bottom up escalation takes place if resources are insufficient. Local governments may be represented within the Incident Management Structure if affected by a large, complex incident.
The federal government has a similar responsibility to assess risk and be prepared to respond. To guide emergency response, the federal government also develops contingency plans. For instance, the Canadian Coast Guard has a Marine Spills Contingency Plan that defines the way it will operate to ensure the monitoring of, or response to, events involving marine pollution. Environment Canada provides advice to the Coast Guard through a Regional Environmental Emergencies Team, which is co-chaired in BC by the Ministry of Environment. This team provides environmental advice, information and assistance to the Responsible Party or lead agency during emergency response situations.
International governments and First Nations may also play a governance/emergency management role by participating in the Emergency Management Structure if they are affected. In addition, there are international agreements, contingency plans and task forces in place to foster international collaboration in the case of an inter-jurisdictional emergency. See Collaboration and Cooperation.
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