Exercise prepares Scott for oil spill accidents Published Sept. 30, 2011 By Airman 1st Class Jake Eckhardt 375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs Scott Air Force Base, Ill. -- The annual defense fuels medium spill response training exercise was held here Sept. 21-22 to ensure base compliance with the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. The 375th Civil Engineer Squadron Bioenvironmental, Environmental, Fire Protection, Fuels and the fuel contractors on base pooled their resources to make certain they performed the proper procedures. "Exercises like this bring the units together in case an oil spill does occur," said Master Sgt. Richard Corey, the 375th Civil Engineers Squadron fuels operations section chief. The two-day exercise started off at 1 p.m. with a briefing explaining the simulated incident and from there each organization asked one another specific questions to think through various procedures to contain and clean up an oil spill. The second day of the exercise was hands-on training. The organizations built a small dam with sandbags, PVC and lead pipe in a ditch outside of Bldg. 560. The pipes were arranged to flow though the sandbags to allow water to escape but trap the fuel and force it to float to the top of the dam and allow it to be separated from the water. "Any installation that stores more than a million gallons of fuel is required to have this training," said Chris Phipps, defense fuels medium spill response exercise instructor from Spectra Technologies. "It's different wherever you go," Phipps added. "You just learn to be dynamic with it." The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was put in place after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and states that a company must have a detailed plan for containment and cleanup of an oil spill should one occur. "This is my third year in the exercise," Corey said. "This year's exercise was a medium spill. Next year, we have a large-scale, base-wide exercise planned with a 190,000 gallon tank spill." Corey said the exercise may involve off-base organizations.