NEW YORK - The United States Coast Guard and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation are conducting an oil spill exercise today at Global Companies, Albany Terminal.
The exercise is both unannounced and routine. It is a full-scale exercise that will include the deployment of oil recovery equipment such as absorbent boom in the vicinity of Global facilities on the Hudson River. However, there has not been any discharge of petroleum products into the river. This is strictly an exercise, meant to test the capability of a facility like the Global terminal to respond to an actual spill.
The exercise began at 9 a.m. and Global personnel were not notified in advance of the exercise. The Coast Guard, as part of its overall disaster response plans, is required to conduct four of these unannounced exercises at randomly selected facilities or aboard vessels each year within the geographic area comprised of the Hudson River valley, New York Harbor and northern New Jersey.
The decision to stage the exercise at the Albany terminal was made by the Coast Guard months prior. The scenario being implemented by Coast Guard and DEC personnel involves a “likely spill” of petroleum products that would be on hand on any given day. The maximum amount of simulated spillage in today’s exercise is 5,000 gallons.
Global is required to deploy its own resources as well as those of its contracted oil spill recovery organizations.
The exercise will last until early afternoon. This is only one of the dozens of exercises and spill responses that the Coast Guard and DEC conduct jointly each year.
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