The 2015 Interspill conference in Amsterdam provided Sea Alarm with the opportunity to present an analysis of the European Union’s Offshore Safety Directive’s oiled wildlife requirements to members of the oil and gas industry and spill response agencies.
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.
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.
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 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.
There are still places available at a two-day Oil Spill Response (OSRL) course which will introduce participants to the issues specific to responding to wildlife during a spill. The course will be held in Ostend, Belgium on 9-10 October 2014.
Sea Alarm staff, in cooperation with personnel from Massey University’s Wildbase, provided the newly developed Oil Spill Response (OSRL) training course on Wildlife Response Planning, designed to help agencies and individuals involved in oil spill response to prepare for wildlife needs during an incident.
Oil Spill Response (OSRL) is offering a new course, developed in conjunction with Sea Alarm and other leading oiled wildlife response experts, designed to introduce personnel and/or agencies which may be involved in planning for, or responding to, an oil spill involving wildlife.
Sea Alarm has been asked to assist the States of Guernsey in reviewing and updating their arrangements for oiled wildlife preparedness and response. As part of the process, an oiled wildlife preparedness training event and stakeholder meeting was held in mid-September in conjunction with an Oil Spill Response (OSRL) shoreline cleanup training course.
Saskia Sessions and Paul Kelway will be representing Sea Alarm at the 2013 SPILLCON in Cairns, Australia in April. They will share exhibition space with Oil Spill Response Ltd. (OSRL), showcasing Sea Alarm’s role in oiled wildlife response and explaining the services it can provide to the oil industry and authorities in Australia and Southeast Asia.
2012 saw changes to the Sea Alarm Board of Directors, while regular meetings with Oil Spill Response Limited, a key Sea Alarm partner, enhanced the two organisations’ cooperative efforts.