As efforts are ongoing to corral the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, local agencies are preparing for the possibility they’ll have to respond to a spill of their own.
Spill response boats, recovery vessels, tracking buoys and other equipment will take to the Columbia and Willamette rivers Thursday for a practice oil-spill deployment.
Clean Rivers Cooperative, a private, non-profit response organization in Portland will conduct the exercise. Representatives from the Washington Department of Ecology, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will oversee the training session.
No oil will be placed in the water.
The drill will test how quickly the Clean Rivers Cooperative can mobilize a team of organizations joined to minimize the adverse environmental, economic and cultural damage of an oil spill.
