Marine Institute to host major marine pollution response conference
The conference is being held under the auspices of ARCOPOL (the Atlantic Regions’ Coastal Pollution Response) project in which the Institute is a participant.
ARCOPOL is a sustainable Atlantic network of experts supported by sufficient information, data exchange and management tools to advise on any spill of oil, hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) or even inert material.This new project will not only incorporate the outputs of previous projects into strategic, national, regional and even local response plans to deal with marine spills, but also improve response capabilities in the event of toxic and inert spills, improve the level of awareness and training of potential responders to incidents and increase the degree of stakeholder involvement. Earlier this year, off the south-west coast of Cork, an estimated 522 tonnes of fuel oil were spilled into the sea during a refuelling operation on a Russian aircraft carrier. During this spill however, it was possible to accurately predict the likely spread of the oil using advanced computer models. “Such tools are inevitably going to be of use again in the future,” said Marcel Cure, one of the Marine Institute’s marine computer modellers working on ARCOPOL.“An important aim of ARCOPOL is to further encourage cross-border collaboration between neighbouring countries in response to a spill,” said Michael Gilloly, Director of Ocean Science Services at the Marine Institute.
“Marine pollution is a transnational issue. Even if a spill originates in international waters, sooner or later it is bound to affect the coastline of several member states.”
