15th March 2019 20:14:07 Hours
Engineer Brigade coordinated a one-day awareness programme on national oil spill contingency plan and marine environment protection on 12 March 2019 at Sappers’ Home, Mattegoda. The event was conducted in collaboration with the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) as a prerequisite for the annually held National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCOP) rehearsal. The lectures conducted were related to oil spill and marine environment protection which was delivered by two officials of MEPA, Mr. Neil Priyadarshana – Assistant Manager (Shipping Operations) and Mr. Nilantha Piyadasa – Assistant Manager (Provincial).
The NOSCOP is an annual event in MEPA’s calendar, where number of government agencies such as the Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka Air Force, Sri Lanka Port Authority, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Central Environmental Authority, Sri Lanka Coast Guard, National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) participate. The Engineer Brigade has represented the Sri Lanka Army three times consecutively in this exercise and will participate in the fourth exercise scheduled to be held on 4 and 5 April. The CBRN troops involved in this rehearsals will be practicing the action to take in the event of a chemical spill while infantry troops will rehears shore cleaning drills if an oil spill occurs.
Commander Engineer Brigade, Brigadier AN Amarsekara USP ndu, officers and other ranks of 14 CBRN Regiment, 9 GW and 9 (V) SLLI, other ranks of 5 SLSC and 2 (V) SLAMC attended this awareness programme conducted on 12 March.
