ECRC’s Role
ECRC is a private management company, owned by several of the major Canadian oil companies, whose role is to provide marine oil spill response services, when requested, to the “responsible party”, the Canadian Coast Guard or to any other Government Lead Agency. ECRC will not assume the role of “On-Scene Commander (OSC)” but will act under the direction of the OSC to provide a plan of action, equipment, resources and operational management in the clean-up effort.
In order to have coverage under the legislation, a vessel or facility requiring an arrangement will have to register with the RO that operates in the Geographic Area of Response (GAR) through which the vessel will sail or in which the facility has its operations. For ECRC, this means signing an annual contract for the Great Lakes, Quebec or Atlantic Regions as applicable and paying a membership fee per contract. An arrangement is in place such that, companies can register with all three of the Response Organizations in Eastern Canada by submitting a combined contract to the ECRC with fee payment. For more details, see “Registration and Fees”.
Should a member have a spill, or otherwise require the assistance of ECRC, they would call the 24-hour emergency number provided to them. ECRC’s call-out process quickly begins to activate ECRC personnel, contractors and equipment to the degree necessary to respond to the size and circumstances of the spill. ECRC has mutual aid support allowing the cascading of people and equipment from the other Response Organizations, including the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation (WCMRC) in Vancouver BC, the Atlantic Emergency Response Team (ALERT) in Saint John NB and Point Tupper Marine Services (PTMS) in Point Tupper NS.
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