The Saint Croix Courier

2007 Sep 7

Oil spill exercise planned for St. Croix and Passamaquoddy Bay

By BARB RAYNER

ST. ANDREWS — Members of both the Canadian and US Coast Guards, together with representatives of federal, provincial/state and municipal organizations, will be conducting an oil spill exercise on the St. Croix River and Passamaquoddy Bay next week.

The exercise is a regularly scheduled event for these agencies and was last held in St. Andrews in 2002. Ryan Green of the Canadian Coast Guard attended Tuesday night's town council meeting to provide more information on the upcoming event.

During this bi-annual exercise he said they will discuss what emergency issues they might have. He said among the things they will be looking at are the transportation of equipment across the border, communications and the testing of some new equipment.

Green said it will also give them the opportunity to visit the Biological Station and try to upgrade some of their hardware as well as some of their resources on site. An oil spill response, he said, could be a plane crash or a train derailment .

He said they will be coming into town Monday to work on some of the hardware upgrades at the Biological Station then Tuesday they will have a learning "meet and greet" at the theatre at the W.C. O'Neill Arena.

On Wednesday people will start to see some equipment going back and forth on both sides of the border, said Green. If the weather is good he said they hope a new aircraft based in Moncton for pollution surveillance will be in the area to do some measurements.

While the organizers of the exercise recognize the current LNG (liquefied natural gas) controversy is ongoing in St. Andrews and surrounding areas, they are anxious to dispel any rumours that may link the oil spill exercise to the LNG debate.