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KIMO Baltic Sea’s Commitment: Oil spill preparedness in Swedish coastal municipalities

KIMO Baltic Sea a branch of KIMO (Local Authorities International Environmental Organisation) has made a Commitment to work with the coastal municipalities in Sweden in order to get the municipalities to establish working oil spill contingency plan. National study shows that at the moment the plan is missing in about half of the Swedish municipalities.
In the case of oil spills, the cost of cleaning one ton of oil in the water is equivalent of twenty tons of contaminated soil, when the oil reaches the shore. The responsibility to clean up oil from the shore lies on the municipality. Even if the municipality would be prepared for the oil spill, the clean-up is very labor-intensive work and the municipalities usually lack the needed human and technical resources.
KIMO Baltic Sea acknowledges that in case of an oil spill, all the help from the other municipalities, companies and  from the general public are needed.  The  previous oil spill accidents have shown that general public is willing to help but the lacking knowledge and training makes it difficult to utilize this voluntary work force.
Giving the members of the public the opportunity to assist in practical conservation work will also make them more aware of the value of the Baltic Sea environment and then challenge the municipalities to preserve it.
In its’ Commitment KIMO Baltic Sea states that it will work with the coastal municipalities in order to get more municipalities to establish an oil spill contingency plans.
KIMO will specially work with pilot municipalities in order to establish oil spill contingency plans which involve the utilization of voluntary oil spill response work provided by companies and citizens.
KIMO Baltic Sea also will create a database with information and examples of oil spill contingency plans from all of the Swedish municipalities.  KIMO Baltic Sea will also carry out inventorying study of the oil spill supplies in municipalities and help identify the materials needed.​

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