The last week of October, Resolve Marine and various local agencies in Unalaska welcomed Todd Duke from 1-Call Alaska who led training for the local shipboard emergency response team.
1-Call Alaska is a joint venture between Resolve Marine Group and the National Response Corporation. They operate an alternative planning criteria for vessel response plans under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990: a regulation that was a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
There were over fifty participants in the drill, which was led by Duke and the NRC team. The 40 Resolve Magone employees included welders, electricians, divers and boat captains who were cross-trained in emergency response over the course of the week.
The drill involved operating the tank barge IBIS and the rescue tug The Resolve Pioneer. The team deployed pollution boom and large skimmers to make sure the equipment was in good working condition and to ensure correct operation.
Duke noted the importance of training the local emergency response team as weather is often a factor in the timing of emergency response in Dutch Harbor.
“The Resolve guys would be the first out to take care of an emergency involving shipboard firefighting, salvage and oil spill cleanup for the first 24-48 hours,” Duke said. “We can’t rely on people from Anchorage or the West Coast to get there in that amount of time. We have to rely on ourselves.”
Overall Duke was pleased with the drill.
“It’s been a very successful training week,” Duke said. “We believe our learning objectives were achieved and we’ll do this again next year.”