Sea Alarm will be at the Interspill Conference (Amsterdam 24-26 March 2015) presenting a paper that explores the wildlife response planning implications of the new EU Directive on Offshore Safety. This Directive was adopted in 2014 and includes some explicit references to oiled wildlife response preparedness which call to have “arrangements” in place in the so called “external response plans”.
In September, Sea Alarm was invited to participate in a major table-top oil spill exercise in Tarragona, Spain organized by Shell. The exercise, named Medspan, involved 120 members of Shell’s Oil Spill Expertise Centre (OSEC) as well as personnel from Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL), Spill Consult, International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF), and Sea Alarm.
Saskia Sessions, Senior Technical Advisor, marked her fifth anniversary with Sea Alarm in October and Paul Kelway, Global Preparedness Coordinator, is now settled in our Brussels office.
A very productive three-day meeting of representatives from leading European wildlife response organisations included review of the response management guidelines that Sea Alarm helped to produce. Experts from the UK, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Spain, The Republic of Ireland, and the Netherlands attended the meeting, as well as observers from ITOPF and OSRL.
The Claims Management Team of IOPC Funds invited Sea Alarm to give a two-day tailored Oiled Wildlife Preparedness and Planning course in early December. Hugo Nijkamp, Saskia Sessions and Claude Velter presented the course, the highlight of which was an integrated table top exercise, where aspects of planning and response efficiency could be practiced.
Sea Alarm recently was informed by the European Commission that the EUROWA proposal (European Module for Oiled Wildlife Emergency Response Assistance) has been selected for European funding.
In October, Hugo Nijkamp attended and chaired the board meeting of Oiled Bird Rehabilitation Netherlands (Stichting Olievogelopvang Nederland-SON). Sea Alarm is advising and assisting SON in firming up its coordinating role in preparedness and response activities in the Netherlands.
In October Sea Alarm and Oil Spill Response (OSRL) organised and facilitated an Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) sponsored daylong workshop on UK oiled wildlife preparedness.
Oil Spill Response (OSRL) is offering its Oiled Wildlife Response Planning course, developed in collaboration with Sea Alarm and other international oiled wildlife professionals, twice in 2015. The course will be given in Singapore in February and again in November in Belgium.
Sea Alarm was asked to present and train on a response procedure created in 2013 to representatives of SEA-PT, the Irish Coast Guard, and interested NGOs during a dedicated full day workshop held in Limerick on 16 May, 2014.
Canmore, Alberta was the site of the first ever, full day wildlife session to be held as part of the Arctic Marine Oilspill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar. Co-chaired by Dr. Sherri Cox of the University of Guelph and Patrick O’Hara of the Canadian Wildlife Service, this 2014 session featured speakers from the Europe, Australia, the US and Canada.
We are sorry to announce that our Office Manager, Joy Bruce-Radcliffe, is leaving. Joy joined Sea Alarm in January of 2013, bringing her financial and administrative skills to our team and implementing much needed, more efficient office systems and procedures.