Spill Notification Point

Competent National Authority

Response Arrangements

The lead agency for government control during an oil spill is the Disaster Management Coordination Agency (DMCA) in the Office of the Chief Minister. The Commissioner of the Royal Montserrat Police would act as On Scene Commander (OSC), and an existing Emergency Operations Centre in Police HQ would be activated as the operations centre for the response.  As lead agency, the DMCA would be responsible for convening a pollution committee to oversee clean-up operations, comprising representatives from the Royal Montserrat Police, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Department of the Environment, the Montserrat Defence Force, the Department of Public Works and local oil companies. 

A National Oil Spill Contingency Plan was drafted in 1996 in accordance with procedures set out in the Caribbean Island OPRC Plan. In practice, government would call upon the industry for the first tier of response, after which assistance would be sought from the UK and from adjacent Caribbean Island states.

Response Policy

The response policy is based on the combined approach of containment/recovery, chemical dispersion and manual and mechanical cleaning of contaminated tourist beaches. 

Disposal of oily wastes is controlled by the Department of the Environment. Contaminated beach material and debris could be landfilled at the Montserrat public refuse tip, probably co-disposed with domestic refuse to encourage natural degradation. Large volumes of recovered liquid oil would have to be exported for final treatment and disposal.

Equipment

Government

The government has no specialised equipment. However, the Department of Public Works is responsible for locating local labour and mechanical earthmoving equipment. 

Private

Only very limited resources for oil spill response, held by Texaco West Indies, are located on Montserrat. Texaco WI is also a member of Clean Caribbean & Americas (CCA) in Florida, whose response resources would be available at Texaco's request. No specialist oil spill cleanup contractors are locally available.

Only small fishing vessels and local launches are available to assist with at sea response. Helicopters and fixed wing aircraft for air surveillance are not available in Montserrat, but are available from nearby Antigua.

Heavy counter pollution equipment from CCA and/or OSRLEARL would have to be shipped via St Maarten.  Salvage, heavy powered tug boats are available at St Eustatius.

Previous Spill Experience

Previous spills in the area have been minor, mainly comprising a few gallons of fuel from commercial and fishing vessels. 

Compensation

* not yet in force

Regional & Bilateral Agreements

• Montserrat is not a party to any regional or bilateral agreements.

Date of issue: November 2012