Posted: 24 May 2007
More than 40 involved in national 'oil spill' exercise
Experts from around New Zealand are to gather in Northland next week for one of the country’s biggest oil spill exercises in years.
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The oil spill exercise will be one of the country's biggest in years.
The Northland Regional Council says exact details of the fictional ‘spill’ are being kept a closely-guarded secret by Maritime New Zealand, which is co-ordinating the May 29-31 exercise, but will probably involve an imaginary ship in Whangarei Harbour.
Regional Harbourmaster Ian Niblock says Northland is one of the parts of New Zealand considered most at risk of a medium to large (more than 50 tonne) oil spill because it is home to the Marsden Pt oil refinery and a large volume of commercial shipping also passes through its waters.
He says in order to test a range of oil spill response components, ‘Exercise Manaia 07’ will be held in two parts over three days. It will be the region’s first exercise since a recent redesign of both regional and national oil spill contingency plans and will include some equipment deployments not previously done in New Zealand.
The exercise will begin with an initial smaller ‘spill’ at the Marsden Cove Marina on Tuesday 29 May. That spill is designed to test a recently written response plan for the marina, together with Northland’s regional oil spill contingency plan and will involve about 20 Regional Council, marina and North Tugz staff.
Day One will see an Incident Command Centre (ICC) set up at the NRC’s Water St head office, as well as the deployment of equipment at Marsden Cove.
However, Mr Niblock says things will escalate dramatically on Day Two (Wednesday 30 May) under a different exercise scenario that eventually will become a nationally serious ‘spill’ involving a fictitious ship.
He says about 18 members of the national oil spill response team are expected to travel north to participate in that part of the exercise.
“Once again, we will set up a fully functional Incident Command Centre and members of the national field team will carry out the deployment of larger pieces of equipment at Marsden Point. The exercise will draw in personnel and resources from the Marsden Pt oil refinery and New Zealand's coastal tanker operation.”
Mr Niblock says the final day of the exercise will be a clean up day.
He says the exercise will be a valuable training tool for all those taking part and will add to the already considerable experience of local oil spill responders.