As part of its commitment to the environment, Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port Authority continues to make progress in one of the points of its environmental policy: introducing and maintaining an Environmental Management System. It has been contemplated as an integrated environmental and industrial safety management system that in turn integrates into a comprehensive port management system.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port Authority participates in a project entitled EcoPorts—part of the LIFE-Environment programme of the European Commission—along with the following ports: Valencia (Spain), Livorno and Civitavecchia (Italy), Cyprus, Marseille (France) and Associated British Ports. And it does so with a view to verifying the applicability to other ports of the guide for introducing environmental management systems devised by the Port of Valencia as part of the EcoPort project. Work is currently being carried out on a guide for introducing environmental management systems in port communities. This information is available to any company within the port community interested in receiving it and in collaborating on the project.

Emergency plan

Internal emergency plans for ports dependent upon this Port Authority (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de La Palma, San Sebastián de La Gomera, Los Cristianos and La Estaca) are constantly updated, the latest applicable version being version four.
Prevention of hydrocarbon spillage

- In these times of increasing public concern about hydrocarbon spillages, it so happens that the frequency of such incidents has diminished appreciably in the last two years. One of the many undertakings of the Harbour Police Service is surface water monitoring to ensure that waters are kept hydrocarbon-free. Consequently, any alteration is considered a spillage and the port authority’s environmental safety officers are immediately alerted as is the Service Coordination Centre Tower. However, with these practices statistics do not work in our favour. What we consider to be spills in our ports are not even regarded as incidents at other installations within the European Community. By way of contrast, it enables us to keep alert and raise awareness among the port community of the importance of good environmental practices.
- ALERMAC Project Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port Authority is participating in an INTERREG project with the ports of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde in order to prevent hydrocarbon spills. The project entails installing a series of buoys equipped with sensors that alert to the presence of hydrocarbons floating on the sea, thus enabling the activation of contingency plans.

Contingency plans to fight against marine pollution
Irrespective of whether action against spillages at sea is contemplated in the port’s internal emergency plan, in compliance with the Law on Ports, we have hired technical assistance to draw up an internal contingency plan for each port to fight against accidental marine pollution. This plan will have an interface that will facilitate coordination of concessionaires’ contingency plans in addition to local, national and territorial contingency plans.
The admission and storage of dangerous goods is monitored in compliance with Royal Decree 145/89, of 20 January, concerning the admission, handling and storage of dangerous goods in ports. The Environmental Security Department has been reinforced which now facilitates daily controls at container terminals to check the location of dangerous goods storage, as well as a visual inspection of the state of the transport units. In collaboration with the Harbour Police