Oiled Wildlife Response (OWR) activation procedures and mobilisation and integration with Oil Spill Response and Clean-up were tested this week when Pendoley was called out by Perth Petroleum Services (PPS) to a Tier 1 spill. Next to a roadside wetland 400 litres of Diesel was spilled into a drain and into a wetland area.
Senior Marine Scientist Dr Andrew Morgan stated ‘it was great to validate our Tier 1 activation and mobilisation procedures, elements of the suite of associated documentation, and to test our integration with PPS spill response and we learnt a lot’.
He added, ‘it is essential to understand the requirements of cleaning up an oil spill, the equipment involved, use of hot and cold zones and how that can possibly impact on the recovery of oiled wildlife in parallel with those operations’.
Key for Pendoley was to validate its activation procedures for OWR and develop lessons learnt to enable refinement of mobilisation best practice. At the site of the spill OWR personnel integrated with oil spill response operations and assisted with clean-up while talking through options available in the event of recovery of any oiled wildlife.
Matthew Baldock, partner and director of PPS also said ‘it was excellent having the Pendoley OWR team on hand to work with any oiled wildlife that we may have encountered. I believe all spill teams should have this type of experience around them especially if a spill is in or around water.’
Understanding transit of hot and cold zones, deploying and recovering booms and peat and the amount of hydrocarbon waste product produced within a controlled cleanup environment highlighted the importance in understanding how to assimilate OWR for a Tier 1 spill.