SCARBOROUGH – State emergency environmental responders will hold a day-long oil spill exercise Thursday at the Scarborough River.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has contracted with Moran Environmental Recovery, Boom Technologies Inc. and Nuka Research to assist with the boom deployment exercise.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Scarborough Fire Department will participate.
The exercise will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mariners will be alerted to the drill. All facilities will be accessible and the channel will not be blocked.
The training will test the feasibility of response strategies in the event of a large marine oil spill offshore that would threaten the Scarborough River and the marsh. The exercise was developed after pre-deployment testing to measure tidal flow and velocity, and to evaluate potential float oil trajectories.
A similar training exercise was held last October in the Penobscot River in Bucksport.
The 3,100-acre Scarborough Marsh is the state’s largest salt marsh and is close to Portland Harbor, the second largest oil import port on the East Coast. Each year, about 130 million barrels of oil are delivered to seven licensed marine terminals.
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