Cenovus Energy brought its emergency response team to Lloydminster’s Lake Vance Park Sunday for a simulated release exercise – the kind of drill that company officials say is critical to staying ready if the real thing ever happens.
The exercise was designed to test both the field team and the incident management structure simultaneously. While a tactical crew practiced deploying containment booms on the North Saskatchewan River, a separate incident management team ran its command-and-control functions from the Synovus building.
Incident commander Darryl Clark said the two-track approach reflects how a real response would unfold.
“We have our IMT set up over at our Cenovus building. And so, we got that structure set up over there to practice their roles and their function in this type of an event and exercise,” Clark said.
For the crew on the water, the value went beyond procedure. Clark noted that conditions on the river, including current and flow characteristics, can vary significantly, and that hands-on training is the only way to truly understand them.
“It’s huge for the guys out here,” he said. “They’re able to see today the current and just things like that can vary. It’s just huge for them to get the boom in place and understand the characteristics of what’s happening in the situation.”
The City of Lloydminster participated as an industry partner. Clark said mutual aid agreements between Cenovus and the city make joint exercises like this one a priority.
“We just believe there’s big benefits to working with them and their emergency response teams in these types of exercises. So we’re all aligned moving forward,” he said.
Public information officer Eric Healey said exercises like Sunday’s follow a consistent format – field operations, a formal incident command structure, and a debrief at the end to capture what worked and what needs improvement before the next exercise.
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