Oil spill training exercise planned for Portland Harbor on Monday
Jul. 16—A four-day-long training exercise aimed at training crews for the potential of a major oil spill in Portland Harbor will get underway Monday.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection said in a news release that the training exercise — which will include personnel and boats from the Maine DEP Response Division, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, the U.S. Coast Guard and private-sector oil spill response companies — will take place near the Sprague Energy Terminals on the Fore River.
Sprague Energy is supporting the training exercise by allowing marine oil spill responders to utilize their facilities. The purpose of the training exercise is to ensure that the response measures for dealing with a maritime oil spill are current.
Boats will launch from the Bug Light boat ramp in South Portland and will operate in the upper Fore River surrounding the Sprague Energy Terminal on both the Portland and South Portland shorelines. Maritime spill containment boats will be visible in the river from the Casco Bay Bridge, the Veterans Memorial Bridge and Interstate 295 on the Fore River.
Three boats and a dozen personnel will deploy, test and retrieve 4,000 feet of oil containment boom during the training, which is scheduled to end Thursday, according to the Maine DEP. The exercise is part of a series of maritime training that DEP conducts annually in select locations along the coast.
