Oil spill team pass test

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A desktop oil spill exercise has tested out the preparedness of Gisborne's Regional Oil Spill Response Team and it went well.

Tuesday's hypothetical spill from Tuahine Point and Tuamotu Island towards Waikanae Beach helped Maritime NZ test the Gisborne region's response capability.

The exercise was conducted with Maritime NZ via video conferencing.

Regional (and National) On-Scene Commander (ROSC) Mick Courtnell said that a national oil spill response exercise had been held during the Level 4 Covid-19 lockdown but this was the first regional exercise since (Tuesday was the first day of Level 3 restrictions).

“The lessons learned here will help our national response team give advice to other regions looking to practise their capabilities,” he said.

“Gisborne District Council is the only region to have conducted such an exercise and it went well.

“It gives the public and Maritime NZ the confidence that just because we were in lockdown does not mean we cannot respond effectively.

“Responding to an oil spill under a Covid lockdown will be challenging but Gisborne has the connectivity and the IT capability to produce a plan,” Mr Courtnell said.

“We can get up and running, notify stakeholders and deploy teams safely under the health and safety requirements of Covid.”

Gisborne harbourmaster Sonny Ali, who doubled as Marine Oil Spill Response Incident Management Team planning officer for the desktop exercise, said the exercise was important for the region as it rebuilt its Incident Management Team, whose personnel had changed in the past six months or so.

“We had a big field exercise planned at the end of March, which had to be cancelled.

“This has helped us not to fall behind with our capability,” Mr Ali said.

“It's good to know that we can do this even with our ROSC in Auckland.

“It is not necessary to have everyone in the same room to get the planning done and have a successful response.”