THE National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP) was formulated to deal with large oil spills occurring in the waters around the country, the Dewan Negara was told yesterday.
Deputy Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Dr Hamim Samuri said NOSCP was managed and regulated by the National Oil Spill Control Committee (NOSCC) chaired by the director-general of the Department of Environment (DOE) and consists of 18 agencies as well as related private sectors.
The committee will set out the roles and responsibilities of each agency and parties involved in coping with the oil spill, specifying methods and channels of communication, monitoring the oil movement, spill control strategies, cleaning up and listing of the control equipment stockpile, he said in reply to Senator Datuk Abidullah Salleh’s question.
Hamim said when there was a large-scale oil spill for example caused by a ship collision, then surveillance and monitoring of the movement of oil would be conducted through the DOE’s Oil Trajectory Monitoring System.
“Monitoring of oil moving through the air, sea and land will also be carried out by the agencies involved.
The information obtained will be used to develop strategies to control the oil spill and protect environmentally sensitive areas,” he said.
Hamim said each state also provides a coastal cleanup action plan which would be mobilised to clean up spills polluting the coastal areas. — Bernama