EXERCISE TO TEST EMERGENCY RESPONSE

A large, multi-agency maritime pollution exercise is due to take place in South West Wales this week.

Exercise Celtic Coast – involving the emergency services, several local authorities and other agencies – will be staged over two days, Wednesday, 5th October and Thursday, 6th October.

It aims to ensure agencies can respond in a co-ordinated and efficient manner to an incident involving both oil and chemical pollution from shipping, thus minimising the impact on the community and the environment.

Celtic Coast involves a series of table-top exercises accompanied by the live deployment of resources and equipment both at sea and on shore in the Milford Haven waterway and at Pembrey Country Park.

Individual agencies regularly carry out their own pollution response exercises. However this exercise will involve multiple agencies.

Agencies taking part include Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Powys County Councils; the Environment Agency Wales; Milford Haven Port Authority; the Maritime Coastguard Agency; Dyfed Powys Police; Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Services; the Hywel Dda Health Board; Public Health Wales; the Countryside Council for Wales; the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority and the Welsh Government.

Exercise Celtic Coast is organised as part of the ARCOPOL project, (Atlantic Regions Coastal Pollution response), which is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the Atlantic Area Operational Programme.