Western Canadian Spill Services training exercises held at Windy Point

Boom Sweep 
Shannon Jarrell photo

Toni Lucas

Western Canadian Spill Services (WCSS) held a training exercise day for companies from area Q at Windy Point near the Oldman River Dam on Wednesday, May 14. WCSS Area Q covers the geographic area from just south of  Calgary to the USA border and from the Alberta/BC border to Lethbridge. WCSS works with petroleum companies in specific areas, training them to work together to achieve a state of spill response readiness. To accomplish this the cooperative maintains spill contingency plans and strategically places Oil Spill Containment and Recovery units (OSCARS) that are available to all member companies in the area.  The day was focused on oil spill containment and recovery in a lake exercises.

Representatives from 32 companies participated in the training.  Some of the training included how to set up an Incident Command System (ICS), a dry land equipment demonstration, and deploying a lake oil spill containment and recovery system. They additionally held a demonstration in how remote control aerial units, or drones, can be used in monitoring a situation.

"It is the intention that the member companies familiarize themselves with the equipment through these exercises, so that they are prepared," said Communications and Training Coordinator for WCSS Shannon Jarrell. "We've been in place since 1972 as a result of a spill that occurred in Nova Scotia. That's when regulators and industry decided that something was needed. To ask every single oil and gas company to have their own spill equipment is a pretty tall order." Jarrell explained that WCSS has over 9 million dollars worth of equipment placed around the province of Alberta, northeast British Columbia and parts of Saskatchewan that can be accessed by companies that are part of the cooperative during an incident.

Lee Tarr demonstrated each piece of equipment before conducting a water exercise
T. Lucas photo

"You really want to have a plan," said Lee Tarr of ITE Consulting as he demonstrated equipment during a dry land equipment demonstration. He laid out all the pieces as if it was in the water giving a good visual demonstration of how the setup worked. He walked the crowd through each of the pieces involved, including the connectors, anchors, ballast chain, anchor line, buoy, tow paravane, boom, and shoreline protection. At the recovery point there was equipment called a skimmer. Tarr discussed weir and drum skimmers, and hose, hose float, pump, manifold and storage tank.

Advancing bow skimmer demonstration
Shannon Jarrell photo

"We would never have one set like this, and call it good. We would have a secondary set behind it to catch anything that trailed behind," he explained. He suggested a minimum of two areas of collection and containment. "This is just going to be one control point."

After lunch WCSS continued to do training out upon the Oldman River Reservoir. "We are going to have two workboats out there hopefully, and we are going to have the barge with the bow skimmer out there working as well," explained Tarr.

Shannon Jarrell shows a stocked equipment unit
T. Lucas photo

Trever Miller taught  how to set up an Incident Command System, including how to set up a chain of command, how to split groups into functioning units, and how to control a situation from start to finish.

Multi-rotor in the air
T. Lucas photo

Aaron Bailey from Mid-West Pump and Chad Conrad are radio control aviation hobbyists from Lethbridge. They demonstrated fixed wing and multi rotor equipment. Each of the units had a camera attached and was controlled by a person on the ground. That person could see what that camera was displaying in real time through a set of goggles. That information was sent to a monitor so other people could see the camera view at the same time.  In the case of a spill this equipment could help find how far it has traveled, and also aid in the planning of containment areas. Conrad explained that a system could be purchased from $800 to $10,000 depending on what was required.  WCSS is currently looking at the feasibility this kind of technology.

Fixed wing radio control flyer on the ground
T. Lucas photo

Related link:  www.wcss.ab.ca