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Twenty people participated in the exercise to test the efficiency of the the floating barriers designed to prevent the spread of contamination in the water
A team made up of twenty people and various small vessels took part in the port of Castellón in a drill which activated the Interior Maritime Plan, to evaluate the effectiveness and coordination of the various bodies involved in the response to an emergency in the interior of the port and efficiency of the barriers.
The drill was conducted on the assumption that a an oil spill had taken place in the interior waters of the harbour. The effective response time was thirty minutes which allowed the all other areas to be rapidly protected against possible contamination.
PortCastelló has at its disposal 525 metres of anti-contamination barriers designed to confine possible oil spills either crude or refined. In 2016 an open water barrier was installed, the only one of its type in Europe, since it inflates automatically once it touches the water. It weighs 2,400 kilos and has a length of 400 metres and is able to close the mouth of the port in 15 minutes. This equipment, costing 180,000 euros was added to the barriers already placed in the interior basin and the canal used by Iberdrola for cooling water.
The president of the PortAuthority of Castellón, Francisco Toledo, stated that “the installation of the anti-contamination barriers demonstrates the commitment of the port of Castellón to the protection of the environment, since we are not obliged to do so by law. We the growth of the port to be sustainable and safe and to guarantee that the port is protected against all possible emergencies beyond the mandatory level.”
The installation of these barriers is one of a number of measures that have been taken at the port of Castellón to protect the environment at a total cost of one million euros , such as those taken to make energy consumption more efficient.
