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Themes of the Chembaltic project

Overview of Maritime Accidents Involving Chemicals Worldwide and in the Baltic Sea Jani Häkkinen & Antti Posti, Chembaltic project TransNav 2013, Gdynia, 19−21.6.2013. Themes of the Chembaltic project. The topic of our paper. Aim of the paper.

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Themes of the Chembaltic project

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  1. Overview of Maritime Accidents Involving Chemicals Worldwide and in the Baltic SeaJani Häkkinen & Antti Posti, Chembaltic projectTransNav 2013, Gdynia, 19−21.6.2013

  2. Themes of the Chembaltic project The topic of our paper

  3. Aim of the paper • Provide an overview of the past tanker accidents in the Baltic Sea, and chemical-related accidents in seas worldwide • A statistical review • Literature review on maritime accidents involving hazardous substances and especially chemicals. • To find out what can be learned from these past accidents, including e.g. occurrence, causes, general rules and particular patterns for the accidents. • The project focuses mainly on chemicals transported in liquefied bulk form, but in this paper also other HNS accidents and chemical accidents involving substances in packaged form are also studied. • Conventional oil and oil products are observed only on a general level. The special scope in the study is put on environmental impact assessment.

  4. Transport volumes of liquid bulk chemicals in the Baltic Sea and in Finland (Posti & Häkkinen 2012) • Over 11 million tonnes of liquid bulk chemicals are handled in the Baltic Sea ports (half of those are handled in Finnish and Swedish ports). • The most handled chemicals in the whole Baltic Sea area are methanol, sodium hydroxide solution, phenol, ammonia, sulphuric and phosphoric acid, pentanes, xylenes, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), ethanol and ethanol solutions. • All of these > 100 000 or even ≥ 1 milj. tonnes • Chemical-specific data from all countries are not complete or not available • Besides these chemicals, there are also other high volume chemicals (e.g. ethylene, propane, butane), and large amounts of liquid fertilisers and vegetable oils which are handled in the Baltic Sea ports, but exact volumes of these substances are unknown as well. • Chemicals transported the most in the Baltic Sea are mainly similar when compared to chemicals transported the most in other sea areas.

  5. The most commonly handled chemicals in Finnish ports in 2008 and 2010 (Posti & Häkkinen 2012)

  6. Past vessel accidents in the Baltic Sea / n=1520 n=1400 n=1520 Figure 1. Vessel accidents in the Baltic Sea in 1989–2010 by accident types. (Häkkinen and Posti 2013 based on HELCOM 2012) Figure 2. Vessel accidents in the Baltic Sea in 1989–2010 by vessel types. (Häkkinen and Posti 2013 based on HELCOM 2012) • Collisions and grounding main types of accident/incidents. • Human factor main cause, followed by technical reasons • No major chemical spills nor oil accident like Erika, Prestige have happened etc. • The latest severe oil spill in the Baltic Sea was in 2001: The Bulk Carrier Tern and the tanker Baltic Carrier collided. Appr. 20,000 seabirds were contaminated • Antonio Gramsci 1987, grounding, spill 650 tonnes

  7. Tanker accidents and the share of pollution cases in the Baltic Sea in 1989–2010. (Häkkinen and Posti 2013 based on HELCOM 2012)

  8. Tanker accidents involved a pollution in the Baltic Sea in 1989–2010 (n=29). (Häkkinen and Posti 2013 based on HELCOM 2012)

  9. FINLAND:Accidents involving a liquid bulk vessel investigated by the Finnish Safety Investigation Authority in the years 1997–2011

  10. M/T C. RUBINO, environmental accident during loading, Port of Hamina, July 20, 2000 • At least two tonnes of nonylphenol ethoxylate spilled to the sea and started to foam. Nonylphenol ethoxylate behaves as a sinker and dissolver. Thus it was impossible to gather it from the sea. • Nonylphenol ethoxylates degraded readily to more harmful substance, nonylphenol. The substance is very toxic to fish and other marine organisms, and it is also a hormone disrupting substance that mimics estrogen. • Consequently, fishes started to die soon after the spill. The seagulls that ate the dead fish probably suffered from reproduction problems in the following spring. Bioconcentration, bioaccumulation, and persistence of nonylphenol is high. Thus it is possible that the substances could be transported significant distances. http://www.turvallisuustutkinta.fi

  11. Lessons learnt from accidents worldwide

  12. Key findings of the literature review • Chemical tanker accidents are very rare, even though there is always the possibility that such incident may happen • Over 60 well-documented accidents including bulk chemicals or HNS (period of ca. 7 decades). In addition over 40 accidents with cargo including packaged chemicals. • Accident probability increases in areas where the density of the maritime traffic is at its highest point, where bad weather conditions exists, as well as the ship-shore interface in ports where unloading/loading take place. • Many studies have shown that the most commonly transported chemicals are the ones most likely to be involved in an accident i.e. liquid fuels and acids. • The maritime accidents frequently involved chemicals or chemical groups like acids, gases, vegetable oils, phenol, ammonia, caustic soda and acrylonitrile. • The volume of spill will be less than in case of oil accident.

  13. Key findings of the literature review • Compared to oil, the liquid chemicals in bulk can be more dangerous to human beings and property because cargoes can be more: Explosive, combustible, poisonous, irritating and reactive • Past maritime accident cases demonstrated that the risks affecting human health come from reactive substances (reactivity with air or water or between products themselves) and toxic substances. • Certain substances such as chlorine, ammonia, acrylonitrile and vinyl acetate are transported in large quantities and may pose very serious threat to human health. • Even though smaller volumes are transported, packaged chemicals can also be extremely dangerous to humans e.g. epichlorohydrine • The important difference between chemical and oil spill is related to response actions. • The air quality or explosion risk are not usually of any concern for response personnel in case of oil spills, however, it should be carefully evaluated if some response actions are made in case of chemical spills. • In case of chemical spills, the response may be limited, in most cases, to initial evaluation, establishing exclusions zones, modeling and monitoring, followed by planning of controlled release, recovery or leaving in-situ. This process will take many weeks of even months.

  14. Key findings of the literature review • From environmental point of view, the previous studies highlighted accident were pesticides released to water but also substances considered as non-pollutants (vegetable oils) seem to affect negatively to biota in water environment. • The evaluation of the chemical risks is very difficult when ship is carrying diverse chemicals (especially container ships) and some of those are unknown during the first hours after the accident. • When compared hazardous chemicals and oil, it can be said that the danger of coastline pollution is far greater concern for oil spills than in chemical spills. On the other hand, the toxic clouds are much higher concern in the case of chemical accidents. • Little is known about the actual marine pollution effect of most of these heavily transported substances.

  15. Environmental risk assessment studies

  16. Fate of chemical Wind GE Dispersion Photolysis, emulsification, fragmentation F Adsorption, bioaccumulationetc D E.g. ifnonylphenol is released to water: 49-59 % stay at water, 41-50 % endup to sediment and 1 % to air. Current S Biodegradation, burial

  17. GE Air Birds F Surface Mammals Pelagic fish D Watercolumn Plankton Benthic communities S Sediment

  18. Scoring method • The most hazardous chemicals are those which sinks, have a high solubility, stay maybe at the water column, persistent, bioavailable and are very toxic and maybe have long-term effects • Altogether 15 chemicals that are transported in the Baltic Sea were assessed using the scoring method developed originally by Häkkinen et al. (2010), though slightly modified for the purpose of this paper (Häkkinen et al. 2013). • The chemicals were assessed based on 9 parameters which were considered the main factors affecting their environmental fate or mobility, ecotoxicology and probability of being involved in an accident. For each parameter, the chemicals were assessed on a scale of 1 to 3, the most hazardous chemicals receiving 3 points. • In addition, some chemicals scored 0.5–1 additional points if they had significant hazardous environmental impacts, for instance based on their carcinogenic potential or endocrine effects • The total number of points was added up, and a priority list for hazardous chemicals was formed.

  19. Table 1. Parameters and threshold levels for the scoring used in risk assessment. Addtional points (0,5-1) were given to chemicals having other significant hazardous environmental impacts

  20. Ranking list based on scorings Scores of different parameters, the total sum and placement in the priority list. The chemicals with the highest points pose the greatest environmental risk. Published in: Häkkinen J, Malk V, Posti A, Penttinen OP, Mäkelä R, Kiiski A (2013). Environmentalriskassessment of the mostcommonlytransportedchemicals - Case Finnishcoastalareas. WMU Journal of MaritimeAffairs. DOI 10.1007/s13437-013-0046-5

  21. Other risk assessment studies • The HASREP (2005) project identified 100 chemicals most transported between major European ports and involved in trade through the English Channel to the rest of the World. The assessment was based on both transport volumes and the GESAMP hazard profile. • They highlighted chemicals like benzene, styrene, vegetable oil, xylene, methanol, sulphuric acid, phenol, vinyl acetate, and acrylonitrile. They concluded that these chemicals were the ones that have high spillage probability but may not result in significant environmental impact. • Similarly, French McKay et al. (2006) applied a predictive modelling approach for a selected range of chemicals transported by sea in bulk and concluded that phenol and formaldehyde present the greatest risk to aquatic biota. • Harold et al. (2011) evaluated human health risks of transported chemicals based on the GESAMP ratings for toxicity and irritancy. This gives more weight to chemicals that are floaters, form gas clouds, irritate and are toxic, such as chlorine (Harold et al. 2011).

  22. Summary and conclusions • Neither major chemical spills nor oil spills, such as Erika or Prestige, have happened in the Baltic Sea. • The spilled substance has in most cases been oil or an oil product – only very few chemical spill cases have been reported in the Baltic Sea. • The most commonly transported chemicals are the ones most likely to be involved in an accident. • Very little is known about the actual marine pollution effect of most of highly transported substances. • When comparing hazardous chemicals with oil, it can be said that the danger of coastline pollution is a far greater concern in oil spills than in chemical spills. • The chemicals in turn might be more dangerous to human health • The most important difference between chemical and oil spill may be related to response actions.

  23. The funding providers and partners of the Chembaltic project (www.merikotka.fi/chembaltic) More information: www.merikotka.fi/chembaltic Jani Häkkinen, Project manager Tel. +358 40 5633 276 e-mail: jani.hakkinen@utu.fi University of Turku

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