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The French Navy is responsible for spill prevention and response and is assisted in this mission by CEPPOL.
Based in Brest for practical reasons - validation of equipment at sea, regular exercises using OSRVs, testing new response methods - CEPPOL plays a pivotal role in response at sea, on a national level, to all types of pollution (oil, chemicals, containers; excluding radioactive pollution or pollution caused by introducing energy into the marine environment).
CEPPOL is in charge of preparing the French Navy for its environmental responsibilities and providing support and expertise to the maritime authorities and response operation coordinators.
Response preparedness missions.
In terms of preparedness, CEPPOL’s missions concern response equipment and the preparation of Navy units in terms of spill response operations at sea.
EQUIPMENT
Response preparedness involves ensuring the availability of suitable equipment, in sufficient quantities, posted in ports ready for use. CEPPOL thus participates in defining and designing suitable response equipment for vessels and aircraft that the Navy should acquire.
CEPPOL is in charge of drawing up the equipment master plan. This plan determines the minimum means needed for response and their distribution along the coastlines and in ports (the naval bases are in charge of storage, maintenance and deployment).
Every year, CEPPOL determines the purchasing policy for response equipment and products, as well as for the equipment needed by assessment and response teams.
CEPPOL's technical services deal directly with response equipment suppliers. They ensure the compatibility of equipment with the Navy's vessels and aircraft and validate the performance of this equipment both in the factory and at sea before positioning it within the spill response services of naval bases in mainland France and French overseas territories. CEPPOL's technical unit determines the conditions of use of equipment at sea, establishes maintenance policies and produces methods and technical guidelines.
In a bid to improve response techniques, or even to put forward new strategies, CEPPOL keeps a permanent technological watch (trade shows and professional events, specialised magazines and websites, establishment and development of a network of experts in the field).
Furthermore, CEPPOL keeps an up-to-date inventory of the French Navy's response means and equipment, as well as storage sites; trained personnel are also listed (and can thus be called upon as reinforcements in the event of a major incident).
For all affairs in this field, CEPPOL is the correspondent for Government and private organisations on behalf of the French Navy (in particular CEDRE).
TRAINING
As part of response preparedness, CEPPOL is also responsible for teaching and training personnel in charge of response equipment and product deployment. This involves training courses organised by CEPPOL (definition of content and scheduling of annual training cycles), at-sea training with equipment implementation (definition of operator training standards) and participation of CEPPOL personnel in POLMAR exercises on the French coastline and in French overseas territories. The personnel of the naval bases' pollution response services are also trained to maintain response equipment.
The wider aim, other than direct training, is to maintain know-how and develop skills within the Navy.
STUDIES AND EXPERIMENTATION
Furthermore, CEPPOL organises, directs or supervises studies and experiments related to pollution response. It participates in research and development programmes on pollution prevention and response.
CEPPOL also monitors the legal aspects of the field.
Response operations
During response, CEPPOL acts as an expert for the maritime authorities in charge of conducting operations. CEPPOL officers and personnel are made available to the authorities in order to provide assistance by offering their expertise within crisis units and acting onboard response vessels on site as on scene commander (OSC) or deputy OSC for the use of response equipment and products.
Following events at sea resulting in a spill, CEPPOL analyses the circumstances of the incident and the response efforts, thus obtaining feedback from each operation, essential for the development of response techniques. Similarly, lessons from exercises are also analysed in depth.
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