larger spill. The land based industry such as oil terminals, tank farms and refineries do all have individual oil contingency systems.
b) The municipal contingency system
According to the Pollution Control Act paragraph 43, the <>. In this sense the municipalities nay may be said to be the cornerstone of the contingency system along the coast. The municipal contingency system shall be able to take care of lesser spills at the coast and within the territorial sea (Norway has a limit of territorial waters at 4 nautical miles). The municipal contingency system is organised through 52 intermunicipal contingency areas, each of them having a particular executive body which as the private industry will need to have an approved Contingency Plan. The forces within the municipal contingency system consists of personnel from the port authority, the police, the fire brigade, technical personnel and so on. The knowledge that these forces possess related to i.e. overview of environmentally sensitive areas, local currents in the sea and wind conditions may be essential in an oil spill combattement operation. The municipal forces will also be the essential in cleaning beaches and shoreline from oil.
c) The State contingency system
<> (Pollution Control Act paragraph 43,2). In other words it is the responsibility of the State to deal with oil spills that are not covered by the private or the municipal contingency systems. This will in practise mean major acute oil spills from ships. In the case of a major spill that may not be taken care of by the municipal contingency system, it will be the State, by the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority that is a subordinated agency under the Ministry of the Environment, that will be in charge of the oil spill operation. The State oil spill system consists of:
・ A head office and 2 agencies
・ 15 oil depots along the coast
・ 5 smaller vessels
・ A particular agreement with the Coast Guard which have oil recovery equipment on board several ships
・ 1 specially equipped surveillance aircraft
・ International agreements on assistance in the case of major oil spills
There is a particular obligation that these 3 levels of contingency systems assists each other upon request (paragraph 47). At the same time the State may on its own initiative take command of the action to combat accident whenever considered necessary (paragraph 46).
The further development of the legal and organisational aspects of contingency planning in Norway will be based on this separation into 3 separate contingency systems. The search for improvements is certainly a continuos process. For instance in recent years the close co-operation between the Navy / Coast Guard and the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority has resulted in an a considerable strengthening of the State contingency system. This will also lead to certain amendments in the legal system, by giving legal power to the Coast Guard with respect to oil spill operations.
The legal and organizational solutions differ from country to country. Nobody may claim to have found the final answer. However, all may agree that the policy, legal and organizational aspects of con- tingency planning are cornerstones in the establishment of a comprehensive national contingency system.
