UK AND IRELAND SPILL ASSOCIATION WORKING GROUPS

Late last year we formed several sectorspecific working groups to help target the Association’s activities to directly support member interests:

The following have been formed:

Marine Working Group (MWG)

This group comprises all marine focussed members drawn from the following groups to collaborate together to create events, networking and promotion opportunities for all members:

Manufacturers Distributors

Marine Spill Response Organisations

Marine consultancies

Marine service companies who also undertake spill response

So far this year we have met once at which we agreed that the planned faceto-face Marine Spill Event in June should be cancelled and moved to Feb 22. The members agreed it would be replaced with a series of Martine focussed Knowledge Base webinars of which the first three have been held (at the time of writing): 10 Feb – Skimmers; what is available, where they should be used and what to consider when using them. Marc van der Zwan, Zwanny and Gareth McCorkill, Ambipar https://www.ukspill.org/ home/2021/02/12/spill-knowledge-baseskimmers-webinar/

18 Feb – Marine Booms Marine Booms, the types available, where they can be sued and how to use, maintain and store them. Paul Rayner, Vikoma and Mark Shepherd, NRC https://www.ukspill.org/ home/2021/02/19/spill-knowledge-basemarine-booms-webinar-live/

24 Mar 21 - Absorbents – what are they and how best to use them Absorbents: Danny Matthews, Darcy and Hugh Netherway, RSK Response (Need to add link to recording later this week)

There are further webinars planned and are listed in the event plan later in the magazine.

The next phase of work is to discusses and possibly originate some standard for marine spill equipment. Whilst members accept there are ASTM standards members feel that there is a need for a British version of these. The goal of this will be to produce a British standard that covers commonly used products and ensure compatibility between manufacturers.

Many of the marine members are likely to be involved in the work the Association will be doing on marine litter/plastic pollution.

Insurance Working Group (IWG)

This group comprises all inland focussed members drawn from the following groups to generate a communication strategy for the insurance industry that highlights the importance of best practice and the use of accredited contractors to manage and execute the clean-up of pollution incidents.

These groups are:

Corporate Members ISAS

Inland Accredited Members

At our well attended January meeting we agreed an approach to the Insurance industry advising them of the issues of under skilled, non-accredited contractors undertaking work that was not adequate for the environmental risks involved.

This approach is ongoing and will be reported badck at the next group meeting in April.

Manufacturers Working Group

The Group has not me this year but will in April but is directly involved in the Marine Working Group reported above.

It will be involved in the work we are initiating on Marine Litter/Plastic Pollution and Recovery

British Disaster Management Association (BDMA)

The BDMA is the certifying body for damage management professionals, setting standards and providing training and accreditation for practitioners and others across the wider insurance industry who are involved in the recovery and restoration of changed properties.

The BDMA represents the interests of practitioners working in the damage management industry, to facilitate education, training, technical support, advice on standards and representation of members’ interests in the public, industry and commercial domains.

There is therefore a clear crossover between the pollution work that we do and the flood/fire/disaster management work that BDMA members undertake.

To recognise this we have each become corporate members of the other’s association. Our collaborating on some awareness training and will be talking at each other’s annual conferences. We hope to encourage local networking so that our members are encouraged to use BDMA members when called to incidents that involving flooding and the need for restoration and likewise BDMA members will use ISAS accredited members when fuel/chemical and hazardous pollution losses occur.

More detail on BDMA can be found at www.bdma.org.uk