Oil Spill Exercise

Monday March 21, 2016

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council will be undertaking one of its annual oil spill exercises at Clifton on Wednesday.

Under the Maritime Transport Act, HBRC is required to respond to oil spills that occur within the coastal marine area in Hawke’s Bay, and is required to run exercises every year.

Wednesday’s exercise will be a field test at Cape Kidnappers, aimed at practising a shoreline clean-up and site management. The scenario relates to a 2-3 km oil slick on the beach at Cape Kidnappers.
The exercise will include shoreline and environmental assessment and deploying of environmental and wildlife teams. While staff will not be deploying any booms or other water recovery gear, they will be working on the beach and setting up a personnel and equipment decontamination site. Maritime New Zealand and Massey University’s Wildbase team will be supporting the exercise

HBRC Regional On-Scene Commander Iain Maxwell says Wednesday’s exercise will focus on training staff and testing setting up for a potential oil spill in a critical environmental site that is difficult to access.
Exercise headquarters will be set up at the Clifton Marine Club.

6 April 2016

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