Today, on July 26, training took place in the Freeport of Ventspils to check the readiness of the port services and the mobility of employees to prevent the spread of pollution in the water area of the port of Ventspils, should it ever become necessary.
The Freeport of Ventspils is a strategically crucial facility, therefore port security and staff readiness for emergencies are especially significant. To assess the preparedness of the services for a range of non-standard scenarios, the Freeport of Ventspils Authority regularly organizes trainings, acting out imaginary crises. Today, it was the turn to try out the use of oil localizing skimmers, which can be important in the case of an oil spill.
Three lines oil localizing skimmers in the length of 600 meters were set up and ready for use during the training. The interconnected oil localizing skimmer lines were pulled across the harbour area with the help of a pilot vessel, thus securing the river inlet and preventing pollution from entering the sea. In such a situation, in real life, the pollution would be collected with the help of harbour vessels, with the lines of oil localizing skimmers isolating the mouth of the river into the sea.
The staff of the Freeport of Ventspils Authority participated in the training, including the Port and Pollution Protection Service and the Polluted Water Collection Vessel group, along with several port vessels.