In Finland the Regional Fire and Rescue Services (RFRS) are responsible for near shore oil spill response and shoreline cleanup operations. In addition, they assist in other types of maritime incidents, such as search and rescue operations and fire-fighting on board. These statutory assignments require the RFRS to have capability to act both on land and at sea. As maritime incidents occur infrequently, little routine has been established. In order to improve their performance in maritime operations, the RFRS are participating in a new oil spill training programme to be launched by South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences. This training programme aims to utilize new educational methods; e-learning and simulator based training. In addition to fully exploiting the existing navigational bridge simulator, radio communication simulator and crisis management simulator, an entirely new simulator is developed. This simulator is designed to model the oil recovery process; recovery method, rate and volume in various conditions with different oil types. New simulator enables creation of a comprehensive training programme covering training tasks from a distress call to the completion of an oil spill response operation. Structure of the training programme, as well as the training objectives, are based on the findings from competence and education surveys conducted in spring 2016. In these results, a need for vessel maneuvering and navigation exercises together with actual response measures training were emphasized. Also additional training for maritime radio communication, GMDSS-emergency protocols and collaboration with maritime authorities were seemed important. This paper describes new approach to the maritime operations training designed for rescue authorities, a way of learning by doing, without mobilising the vessels at sea.

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Shipping on the Baltic Sea, especially the transportation of oil, has grown significantly over the past few years. One of the most accident risky areas for Finland is situated in the Eastern Gulf of Finland (lat. 60° 11’ long. 027° 45’ E). The Baltic Sea has officially been classified by the International Maritime Organization as Particularly Sensitive Sea Area in 2005. In Finland the Regional Rescue Services (RRS) are responsible for organising on-shore clean-up with the assistance of the Regional Environmental Centres (REC). These oil combating authorities of Kymenlaakso region in south-eastern Finland have developed a thorough preparedness for oil incidents with the help of SOKO – Management of on-shore oil combating - project (SOKO). SOKO, innovated and administrated by the Kymenlaakso University of Applied Sciences (KyAMK), produced a detailed guidebook for oil combating authorities and the response commander (RC). The scope of the guidebook was achieved as an interdisciplinary effort between educational institutes, rescue services, environmental centres, authorities, civic organisations and businesses. The guidebook provides detailed information on how to conduct oil combating in the case of a major oil incident where the oil reaches the shores. The guidebook is used as an action plan, as a manual for the response commander (RC) as well as for training both authorities and volunteers. It is an extensive collection of studies undertaken by further education students and specialists under the supervision of the project steering committee, formed by local oil combating authorities and KyAMK SOKO project personnel. The guidebook discusses the oil combating organisation and the management, the human resources, the communication and the financing issues. The guidebook also covers the arranging cleaning operations, the oil combating equipment and the temporary storage sites in the mainland and the archipelago and the construction specifications for the temporary storages. Transportation of oily wastes was also examined including the methods for loading and discharging oily wastes, as well as the sea, road and railway transportation methods using a database for estimating the best and most economic routes from the archipelago to the mainland. In addition, detailed operative charts were produced, with indications of the cleaning sectors and the oil waste transportation spots. The SOKO contingency plan differs from the governmental plans by focusing only on the on-shore response excluding the at-sea response. The role of the oil combating authorities in the project was to identify unresolved issues in preparedness, provide practical information, supervise and accept the outcome. The main financier of SOKO in 2003–2007 was the Finnish Ministry of Education. The SOKO concept is currently expanding to cover more coastal area in the Gulf of Finland (SOKO II -project 2007–2011).

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ID 687464 An oil spill reaching ashore may generate massive amounts of oiled waste as oil contaminates soil, vegetation and floating debris. The resulting volume of oiled waste may be multiple compared with the original volume of spilt oil. The Finnish authorities responsible for the oil spill response in nearshore waters have calculated that the target scenario, to which the national and regional contingency plans should respond, is an oil spill of 30 000 tonnes resulting in over 500 000 tonnes of oily wastes. Safe and efficient handling of that waste volume requires a thorough pre-planning. As the capacities of the waste disposal facilities are mainly measured up to the domestic wastes, temporary arrangements will be necessary. Further, in order to maximize the differentiated capacities of each available disposal plant, the wastes should be segregated. Segregation also decreases the costs related to the final disposal. In Finland, where the coastline is ragged and, in some places, difficult to access, the logistic chain of wastes may consist of several stages and transportation modes. The complexity of the transportation chain combined with the requirement of segregation will challenge the waste management during an incident. Therefore, contingency plans are developed to include also site-specific logistic plans with pre-defined transportation and storage points. In addition, easy-to-use segregation guidelines are produced using colour codes for different waste types together with the inserted Quick Response (QR) codes to provide segregation instructions. To keep track on the segregated waste units, the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology might provide a useful option. This paper examines the usability of RFID tracking in oil spill response waste management. The observations are based on field exercises aiming to study the benefits of technology using RFID tags and RFID readers. The aim of the exercises was also to determine the quality and quantity of the data needed to be stored on tags in different transportation scenarios. In addition, this paper introduces the QR segregation guideline and its interoperability with the identification and tracking technology tested.

Finland's northern location presents operational and logistical challenges to effective oil spill response operation in the wintertime as the northern parts of the Baltic Sea are covered by ice almost every winter. In Finland the Regional Rescue Services (RRS) are responsible for near shore spill response and shoreline cleanup operations. To improve their cold weather response capability four coastal RRS initiated a joint project to develop a shoreline cold weather response plan. This project called WinterSOKO (A32372) focuses on the response options applicable in cold conditions and the spill response logistics on snow- and ice-covered shorelines and near shore waters. This paper presents the logistical approach used in the project. Optimal combination of marine and land based logistical support is a key success factor as the cold weather response requires a holistic management of multiple response strategies with variable conditions in the spill site.

Responding to a major oil spill is a labour intensive operation and involves several governmental and regional authorities, agencies and voluntary organisations. In Finland, The Finnish Border Guard is the competent pollution response authority that conducts the response measures in the event of an oil spill on the open sea. The RFRSs are in charge of oil spill response operations both in coastal and inland waters. The environmental agencies assist the RFRSs in executing the response operation e.g. by providing expertise in nature protection prioritisation. Along with the authorities, several non-governmental institutions as well as voluntary organisations are involved. Especially the Voluntary Oil Spill Response Troops of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Finland are prepared to assist in responding to an oil spill contaminating shorelines. The response capability of the WWF voluntary troops is based on long-term training and pre-education. Today, the troops consist of over 9000 volunteers, 3000 of which have completed response training and can easily be integrated into an authority driven operation. The collaboration between authorities and volunteers is regularly tested by means of co-operation exercises and real spill response cases. This paper studies the collaboration framework of the voluntary troops and the RFRSs and the benefits of the pre-established system.