BfR-Wissenschaft
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2 Status of discussion by environmental experts in Germany
Almut Nagel
Chair of the Independent Group of Environmental Experts “Consequences of Pollution Acci
dents” at the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (UEG), Germany
The use of dispersants is a response option to combat oils spills at sea that has gained in
creasing attention in the last years. Among other reasons, this is due to their extensive use
during the Deep Water Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico and respectively new insights
(see articles of Dierk-Steffen Wahrendorf and Carolin Grabsch further on).
As for Germany, the Federal Government and the Coastal States and their joint institution,
the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies rely on mechanical containment and recov
ery in case of oil spills. Meanwhile neighboring states have included dispersants in their na
tional spill response strategies (as first or secondary response options) or are considering
their future use. Furthermore, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has contracted
oil spill response vessels with dispersant application systems and dispersant stockpiles,
which could be used to top-up national response options in case of emergency (see article of
Walter Nordhausen).
In this framework of ongoing scientific discussions and activities of other EU member states
and the EMSA, Germany is in a situation to consider the use of modern dispersants as a
potential complementary option to mechanical response in its spill response strategy. For this
purpose the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies is currently reassessing ad
vantages and disadvantages of the use of dispersants in national waters aiming to identify
opportunities and limitations. The working group instated by the Central Command is focus
ing on operational aspects including the preparation of a decision support system (analytical
tool/decision tree) to carry out an in-situ Net Environmental Benefit Analysis (NEBA) in case
of an oil spill (see article of Jens Rauterberg).
The Independent Group of Environmental Experts “Consequences of Pollution Accidents”
(UEG) is tasked to advise the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies in terms of envi
ronmental and health issues related to marine pollution emergencies. In the context of the
revision of the national spill response strategy, the expert group was asked by the responsi
ble committee of the German coastal states to provide scientific opinion and recommenda
tions on the use of dispersants in German coastal and marine waters. This expertise will
complement the outcomes of the Central Command working group on operational issues and
give advice in regard to the NEBA analytic tool.
In the aftermath of the oil spill induced by the PALLAS casualty on the North Frisian coast in
1998, a group of experts of governmental and scientific institutions engaged in assessing
advantages and limits of dispersant use in Germany with first documents published in 2000
and 2001 (Bernem et al., 2000). As in 2004 the UEG was founded, these experts became
members and have followed ongoing political and scientific discussions on dispersants use.
This knowledge builds the basis for the current reappraisal. A first collection of the state of
knowledge was compiled in summer 2015 by the UEG. It aimed at providing an overview on
dispersant use and to identify actual open scientific questions and research gaps concerning
their use in marine and coastal waters in Germany. In order to gather further available
knowledge and prepare common ground for continued discussions, the workshop “The use
of dispersants to combat oil spills in Germany at sea” was held in Berlin in November 2015. It
was initiated by the UEG, organized and hosted by BfR, supported by BSH, BfG, the UEG’s
experts and the Central Command.
The aim of the workshop was to:
