Baltic CWA Contingency Plan

The lack of regulations and knowledge concerning the responsibilities of national authorities in the area of decontamination procedures in the event of accidental catch of CW usually results in re-dumping of dangerous chemicals back into the sea, without reports to the appropriate authorities.

Therefore, one of the main goals of the CHEMSEA project was to develop a unified code of conduct in case of accidental catch of chemical munitions at sea or shoring on the beach, that may be implemented in all Baltic States, resulting in a unification of reaction procedures and national contingency plans. A resulting model was developed and introduced in the context of two generalised scenarios of contact with CW:

• CW threat at sea – the sea scenario
• CW accident on the beach – the land scenario

Both models identify bodies responsible for reacting against the threat and actions to be conducted in order to secure both people and the environment. The models of reaction were compared with national contingency plans in order to reveal strengths and weaknesses of state specific solutions. As a result, CHEMSEA encouraged national authorities of Baltic States to introduce improvements to their current procedures by adopting the Baltic CWA Contingency Plan.

Below you can view both models which served as basis for the Contingency Plan:

• CHEMSEA Contingency Model Land (pdf)
• CHEMSEA Contingency Model Sea (pdf)