After the oil spill in the gulf last May, Captain Mark Turner was commissioned prepare a report examining the province’s prevention and response capabilities, and he has concluded that Newfoundland and Labrador has an excellent safety record and an excellent set of safety regulations. He did provide the province with 25 recommendations to bolster its policies and procedures, which included developing a dispersant-use capability program be established for our waters, that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board become more transparent, researching the positives and negatives of the burning of spilled fuel, and that operators have to have catastrophic blowout response plans firmly in place – despite their unlikelihood.
