Comprehensive exercises to confirm readiness for actions to localize and eliminate oil spills were held at Pulkovo Airport.

"Pulkovo regularly holds exercises. They play an important role in ensuring safety, a priority task for the airport. As part of the current training, attention is paid to the environmental aspect of the activity, which allows minimizing the impact on the environment. Exercises are important for practicing the coherence of joint actions in emergency situations and determining the level of training of specialists,"  said Andrey Drobovich, Deputy General Director, Chief Operating Officer of Northern Capital Gateway (the operator of Pulkovo Airport).

According to the scenario of the exercise, a tanker truck depressurizes at the airport, resulting in a spill of diesel fuel near an underground tank at the site of the transformer substation of the flight support service (SESTOP).

As part of the training, all practical issues related to emergency response were worked out in stages, from notification to liquidation of oil spills:

• priority actions;

• joint actions of the center for resolving failure and crisis situations, which includes the fire-fighting and emergency rescue support service for flights (FESFS) and medical stations, the head of the integrated shift, the head of the SESFS shift, and the airfield service;

• operational alerts;

• work of the commission on emergency situations and fire safety (EChS and OPB) on decision-making;

• localization and elimination of oil spills with the arrival of emergency teams and emergency rescue teams;

• actions to prevent fires, localize and eliminate spills using professional emergency rescue teams.

The duty team (airfield service and airport security service) set up barriers to restrict and organize access to the spill area, the SPASOP evacuated the staff and handed them over to the medical staff of the health centers. The PASF localized the spill, installed booms, used sorbents to collect oil products, pumped out the spilled diesel fuel and cleaned up oil-containing waste.

The comprehensive exercises made it possible to test the effectiveness of interaction between airport services and the RSChS (Unified State System for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergencies) forces, and to assess the level of training of employees and the operability of airport systems.

Such exercises are held once every three years in accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 31.12.2020 No. 2451 "On approval of the Rules for organizing measures to prevent and eliminate oil and oil product spills on the territory of the Russian Federation, with the exception of the internal sea waters of the Russian Federation and the territorial sea of ​​the Russian Federation, as well as on recognizing certain acts of the Government of the Russian Federation as invalid." Based on the results of the exercises, the Commission, consisting of representatives of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for St. Petersburg, the North-West Directorate of Rostekhnadzor, the North-West Interregional Directorate of Rosprirodnadzor, executive bodies of state power and local governments of St. Petersburg, recognized the facility as ready for action to localize and eliminate oil and oil product spills.