West Coast fuel resilience project ramps up

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:

A nearly $300,000 resilience project to ensure the West Coast is strategically connected in the event of a full-scale civil defence emergency is ramping up.

West Coast Emergency Management group manager Claire Brown told the West Coast Emergency Management Joint Committee this week substantial work has progressed around the fuel aspect of the wider resilience project, which also aims to set up an alternative communication project.

The project was funded by NEMA earlier in the year.

Brown said they were at the stage of developing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with up to 30 of the region's fuel stations to ensure their strategic role in any future event.

This included ensuring petrol stations had access to a back up power supply "and an understanding of Civil Defence and its role".

This was to enable the utilisation of critical fuel supplies in an emergency.

Brown said the intended memorandum was a "unique" cross-sector arrangement, the first of its kind in the country.

It would include ensuring fuel stations had the appropriate wiring in place in order to hook up to portable generators for power supply, or had accessed provision through the resilience fund for a generator.

"I think we have identified this as a key issue for us accessing fuel."
However, that was only one element of the broader project, which has a two year rollout, Brown said.

More broadly, a South Island group had been initiated to collaborate in the design of a high frequency radio network.

Meanwhile, the West Coast councils' chief executives group had endorsed progression of two funding proposal topics for next year's NEMA funding round.

These were a 'kit me' household preparedness web based resource, as part of a national rollout, and alternate emergency operations centre/emergency control centre emergency equipment cache - with early discussion with the region's runanga regarding the location of emergency equipment at marae.

This was due to be submitted by early next year.