Update: Response Efforts Continue on South Matagorda Island
Effective shoreline clean-up efforts are on-going, Saturday, along Mustang, South Matagorda and North Padre islands in response to the Texas City oil spill. As of sunset Friday, response workers have removed a total of 200,775 pounds of oiled sand and oiled debris from the shorelines of Mustang, North Padre and South Matagorda islands. These figures include 102,700 pounds of oiled material from Mustang Island, 93,550 pounds from South Matagorda and 4,525 pounds from shoreline around Bob Hall pier.
MARPOL Compliance Programs
MARPOL Training Institute (MTI), a California-based training and consulting company, now offers two auditable computer-based programs designed to give shipping industry employees the information they need to be in compliance with MARPOL standards and EPA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) regulations. These programs were developed by MTI principles Captain Robert Hall and Chief Engineer David Hiller who have over 75 years of combined experience in the shipping industry. Both programs provide a training course for either crew or officer training and trainees can work at their own pace, leave to attend to duties, and return to pick up where they left off. Following successful completion and an open-book assessment, the trainee can print out a Certificate of Completion.
MARPOL Training Institute NPDES Training
California-based MARPOL Training Institute, Inc. (MTI) released its NPDES Training for Vessels (NTV) software package. This software meets the requirements of the EPA’s Vessel General Permit (VGP) Section 5 for crew training which went into effect February 6. “NTV details each of the 26 discharges permitted under the VGP”, explained MTI’s Managing Partner Captain Robert Hall, “as well as providing training on a fully customizable checklist that helps you document required inspections and corrective actions. NTV is installed on either a local area network or training computer in offices and aboard ships and will soon be accessible on the Internet. For easy learner reference, many screens link electronically to a paragraph in the VGP as well as a citation in VGP Factsheet.
