scholarly journals Evolution of Contingency Planning in California – a Federal and State Coordinated Effort

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassidee Shinn ◽  
Anna Burkholder
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Contingency Planning ◽  
California Department ◽  
Joint Preparation ◽  
New Process ◽  
Contingency Plans ◽  
Sensitive Site

ABSTRACT U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) agreed to the joint preparation of oil spill contingency plans following the enactment of California and federal laws in 1990. With little guidance initially, six Area Committees embarked on a new process to create the first coastal Area Contingency Plans (ACPs) in 1992. In 2015, when emergency regulations to expand OSPR's jurisdiction statewide became effective, developing inland Geographic Response Plans (GRPs) became a top priority. Over the last 30 years, the ACPs have evolved into robust, nationally recognized planning documents, and response plans have expanded into inland environments. This paper will describe in detail the contributions and advancements in California oil spill contingency planning over 30 years. It will highlight OSPR's approaches for statewide consistency and coverage, interoperability between various state and federal plans, tools (including Geographic Information System (GIS) and various databases), improved sensitive site contacts and management, and lessons learned. It will also cover goals for future improvements in both marine and inland contingency plans.

Unannounced Drill Program: Testing Spill Management Team Capability through Vessel & Facility Oil Spill Contingency Plans

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 2017425
Author(s):  
Cassidee Shinn ◽  
Joe Stewart ◽  
Yvonne Addassi
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Incident Command ◽  
Contingency Plan ◽  
Program Testing ◽  
Continued Education ◽  
Contingency Plans

California has approximately >10,000 vessels calling its ports each year, and 200–300 facilities state wide, many of which are required to have a California Oil Spill Contingency Plan (Contingency Plan) on file with Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR). Spill Management Teams (SMT), either staffed by Contingency Plan holders' employees or contracted out, and the use of the Incident Command System (ICS) structure must be described in these plans. OSPR introduced an unannounced SMT drill program (Program) in 2012 to ensure that Contingency Plan holders can successfully complete the proper initial notifications, activate their SMT, and use ICS in accordance with their approved Contingency Plan and California Code 820.01, Drills and Exercises. There are multiple goals of this Program, including the enhanced capability of SMTs, OSPR, and other partners. This Program provides continued education and training for Contingency Plan holders and SMTs in an effort to bolster the initial response phase of an actual incident. Through these drills, SMTs must demonstrate that they could make proper notifications and decisions during an actual incident and be staffed with trained personnel in ICS to fill positions before State and Federal representatives respond. Additionally, SMTs should deploy resources listed in their approved Contingency Plans and ensure those resources are up to date, available, and sufficient. Furthermore, drills provide an opportunity for OSPR and SMTs to build relationships through testing these procedures, which should make the initial response more efficient and effective. Lastly, the drills are often conducted with representatives from United States Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency, both of which have their own drill programs. Working in conjunction with federal partners ensures continuity and fewer required drills of SMTs. Since the beginning of the Program, SMTs continue to improve their response capabilities, validated by more successfully completed unannounced drills. OSPR has conducted 30 unannounced drills, all of which were on SMTs for marine facilities and vessels. With the expanded authority of OSPR to regulate facilities statewide in 2015, this Program will continue to grow. Ultimately, a more comprehensive Program should lead to enhanced SMT capability statewide, and therefore better protection of the State's natural resources overall. The goal of this poster will be to describe: 1) the history and purpose of this Program; 2) the lessons learned and improvements of SMTs and Contingency Plans; and 3) the expansion of the Program from marine to statewide.

scholarly journals California's Response to USCG Nationwide Standardization of Area Contingency Plans

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassidee Shinn
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Response Strategy ◽  
California Department ◽  
Response Strategies ◽  
Contingency Plans ◽  
Sensitive Site ◽  
User Friendly

ABSTRACT California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) - Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), working with the United States Coast Guard (USCG), and Area Committee members, made significant strides to streamline the Area Contingency Plans (ACPs) for improved efficiency and statewide consistency to adhere to new USCG guidance. Beginning with Sector San Diego's ACP, which underwent major revision in 2018, and Sector Los Angeles/Long Beach in 2019, OSPR worked closely with USCG to ensure that there is comparable information statewide, improved maps and GIS compatibility, and updated environmentally and economically sensitive site information. OSPR created a new environmental sensitive site database, including more user-friendly Geographic Response Strategy pages for those identified sites. OSPR also revised the content of Section 9800, which describes the environmental, cultural, historic, and economic sensitivities of a given ACP area, and includes the Geographic Response Strategies. This paper describes in detail the contributions and changes that OSPR has made to California ACPs since 2018. It highlights its approaches to streamlining for efficiency and statewide consistency and lessons learned from the new revision and approval processes.

The Refugio Oil Spill Response: Case Study and Lessons’ Learned/Best Practices for the Future

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-123
Author(s):  
Yvonne Najah Addassi ◽  
Julie Yamamoto ◽  
Thomas M. Cullen
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
California Department ◽  
Oil Spill Response ◽  
Santa Barbara County ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT The Refugio Oil Spill occurred on May 19, 2015, due to the failure of an underground pipeline, owned and operated by a subsidiary of Plains All-American Pipeline near Highway 101 in Santa Barbara County. The Responsible Party initially estimated the amount of crude oil released at about 104,000 gallons, with 21,000 gallons reaching the ocean. A Unified Command (UC) was established consisting of Incident Commanders from the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), Santa Barbara County, and Plains Pipeline with additional participation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California State Parks. Within hours, the CDFW closed fisheries and the following day Governor Brown declared a state of emergency for Santa Barbara County. The released oil caused heavy oiling of both on and offshore areas at Refugio State Beach and impacted other areas of Santa Barbara and Ventura. A number of factors created unique challenges for the management of this response. In addition to direct natural resource impacts, the closure of beaches and fisheries occurred days before the Memorial Day weekend resulting in losses for local businesses and lost opportunities for the public. The Santa Barbara community, with its history with oil spills and environmental activism, was extremely concerned and interested in involvement, including the use of volunteers on beaches. Also this area of the coast has significant tribal and archeologic resources that required sensitive handling and coordination. Finally, this area of California’s coast is a known natural seep area which created the need to distinguish spilled from ‘naturally occurring’ oil. Most emergency responses, including oil spills, follow a similar pattern of command establishment, response and cleanup phases, followed by non-response phase monitoring, cleanup and restoration. This paper will analyze the Refugio oil spill response in three primary focus areas: 1) identify the ways in which this spill response was unique and required innovative and novel solutions; 2) identify the ways in which this response benefited from the ‘lessons’ learned from both the Deepwater Horizon and Cosco Busan oil spills; and 3) provide a summary of OSPR’s response evaluation report for Refugio, with specific focus on how the lessons learned and best practices will inform future planning efforts within California.

scholarly journals Geographic Response Plans: Preparing for Inland Oil Spills in California Waterways

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Burkholder
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Inland Waters ◽  
California Department ◽  
Contingency Plans ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Local Agencies

ABSTRACT #1141189 Emergency regulations governing the development of oil spill contingency plans in California, along with financial responsibility for inland facilities, pipelines, refineries and railroads, became effective in 2015, with final regulations being adopted in January of 2019. With the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's (CDFW's) Office of Spill Prevention and Response's (OSPR's) authority for oil spill prevention, preparedness, and response being extended to inland waters of the State, the need to develop Geographic Response Plans (GRPs) for priority watersheds with higher risk of an oil spill became a top priority. Given the successful history with developing, implementing, and maintaining the California marine Area Contingency Plans (ACPs), OSPR has implemented a similarly effective GRP program. GRPs are driven primarily by access to sites along river systems and lakes where response activities are feasible. The process of developing GRPs for the State has consisted of: 1) developing a consistent document framework based on recently developed GRPs including the Region 10 Regional Response Team (RRT) and Northwest Area Committee (NWAC) GRPs in the Pacific Northwest, the Feather River GRP developed by Union Pacific Railroad in California, as well as previously developed GRPs by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Region 9 (California, Nevada, Arizona); 2) implementing a Statewide GRP Steering Committee (SGSC) consisting of State, federal and local agencies, industry, oil spill response organizations (OSROs), an environmental Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), and a tribal representative; and 3) developing partnerships with industry representatives, and federal, State and local agencies, including first responders [Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPCs) and others] to ensure critical local expertise and information is incorporated in each, individual GRP. With the emerging trend of oil by rail transportation; historical spill threats from pipelines, fixed facilities, and truck transportation; and the promulgation of emergency regulations extending OSPR's oil spill preparedness activities to inland waters, the development of GRPs for at-risk watersheds became critical.

UNNECESSARILY NEGLECTED IN PLANNING: ILLUSTRATION OF A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO IDENTIFY HUMAN DIMENSION IMPACTS OF MARINE OIL SPILLS

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (02) ◽  
pp. 1250012 ◽  
Author(s):  
FABIENNE LORD ◽  
SETH TULER ◽  
THOMAS WEBLER ◽  
KIRSTIN DOW
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Response ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Human Dimensions ◽  
Contingency Planning ◽  
Human Dimension ◽  
Contingency Plans ◽  
Negative Impacts

Technological hazards research, including that on oil spills and their aftermath, is giving greater attention to human dimension impacts resulting from events and response. While oil spill contingency planners recognize the importance of human dimension impacts, little systematic attention is given to them in contingency plans. We introduce an approach to identifying human dimensions impacts using concepts from hazard and vulnerability assessment and apply it to the Bouchard-120 oil spill in Buzzards Bay, MA. Our assessment covers the spill, emergency response, clean-up, damage assessment, and mid-term recovery. This approach, while still exploratory, did demonstrate that the spill produced a range of positive and negative impacts on people and institutions and that these were mediated by vulnerabilities. We suggest ways in which the framework may help spill managers to learn from events and improve contingency planning by anticipating risks to social systems and identifying strategies to reduce impacts.

Contingency Planning for Oil Spills: An Update Based on Experience Gained from the Port Angeles Spill

1988 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 145-159
Author(s):  
Robert A. Levine
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Contingency Planning ◽  
Contingency Plan ◽  
Contingency Plans

Although the best method for handling an oil spill is to prevent its occurrence, the risk of a significant oil spill, from either a tank or other vessel, is always present. When a spill does occur, a good spill contingency plan will help to limit the adverse effects of the spill. This paper discusses the contents and development of Spill Contingency Plans, with emphasis on experience gained during the cleanup of the Port Angeles spill. Information pertinent to and details from ARCO Marine Inc.'s Spill Contingency Plan have been included to aid interested parties in their endeavors to develop suitable contingency plans.

OIL SPILL CONTINGENCY PLANNING IN THE LATIN AMERICAN PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

1995 ◽  
Vol 1995 (1) ◽  
pp. 962-963
Author(s):  
Juan Miguel Moyano ◽  
Aldo Héctor Brussoni
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Petroleum Industry ◽  
Institutional Capacity ◽  
Contingency Planning ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Industry Collaboration ◽  
Contingency Plans ◽  
Sensitivity Maps

ABSTRACT A questionnaire was circulated between ARPEL (Asistencia Recíproca Petrolera Empresarial Latinoamericana) member companies in which their capacity to confront an oil spill contingency on their shores, separately and collectively, is determined. The results show that a need exists for preparing sensitivity maps to be utilized in the contingency plans. It can be concluded from this study that the Latin American petroleum industry centered in ARPEL should orient itself toward regional cooperation that would strengthen institutional capacity and maximize the effectiveness of government-industry collaboration in handling emergency situations.

Organizational and Financial Considerations of Wildlife Operations During Two Orphan Spills Off California1

1999 ◽  
Vol 1999 (1) ◽  
pp. 989-992
Author(s):  
Peter Gautier ◽  
Kent Bauer ◽  
John Tarpley
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
California Department ◽  
Incident Command ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Point Reyes ◽  
The Difference

ABSTRACT In November 1997 and again in January 1998, U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Office San Francisco Bay, California Department of Fish and Game Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), the National Park Service, and the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary responded to “mystery” oil spill incidents in the Point Reyes National Seashore, California area. These spill responses were unique because they were primarily wildlife recovery and rehabilitation operations; very little oil was sighted despite wildlife impacts that rank the event as the fourth worst in California history. A large-scale investigation including the use of multiple laboratories to identify the source of the oil has established a connection between the two spills, but no responsible party has been identified to defray the response costs. As a result of the spills, a significant effort is underway in Northern California to better define the role of wildlife operations within the incident command system and to rethink its organization and protocols. Other lessons to apply to future responses involve the funding issues revolving around the difference between response efforts and natural resource damage assessment when the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF) is the primary source of funding.

Coast Guard and Epa: One Area Contingency Plan

1999 ◽  
Vol 1999 (1) ◽  
pp. 967-969
Author(s):  
David Westerholm ◽  
David Anderson ◽  
James Augustyn ◽  
Thomas Rayburn
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Contingency Planning ◽  
Physical Size ◽  
Western Lake ◽  
Federal Response ◽  
The One ◽  
Western Lake Erie

ABSTRACT The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have developed a pilot project to address federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) requirements for Area Contingency planning in the Captain of the Port (COTP) Zone and the corresponding U.S. EPA inland area in a portion of the Western Lake Erie Basin. The project, known as the “One County In” approach, encompasses contingency planning for the entire county, not just the COTP Zone. Local and state planners and responders as well as industry representatives fully support the effort. The one plan eliminates the multi-plan issues associated with divided federal response jurisdictions. While the geographic scope of the Plan expanded, the physical size of the document decreased significantly due to a detailed review by the Area Committee. Initiated in fall 1997, the combined Plan was completed in September 1998.

Complexities of Oil Spill Contingency Planning for Railroads – Lessons Learned In Washington State

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 2096-2109
Author(s):  
Linda Pilkey-Jarvis ◽  
Nhi Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Distribution Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Regulatory Requirement ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Oil Transportation ◽  
Contingency Plans

Abstract 2017-405 With the energy renaissance in the United States and the lack of inland pipeline distribution systems, increasingly railroads are transporting crude oil to coastal ports for refining and for further distribution over the water. In Washington State, rapidly changing modes of crude oil transportation, shifting away from vessel and towards rail delivery, resulted in a regulatory requirement for rail operators to develop state approved oil spill contingency plans. Oil spill planning for railroads can be complex, for instance, planning for spills in all types of terrains, environments and habitats, as railroads cross both inland and marine waters. Washington State regulations for railroad contingency plans have been developed in response to changes in oil movement and this paper presents lessons learned from that endeavor. During the rule process, a unit train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed in the Columbia River Gorge, providing an opportunity to draw those lessons into the final rules as adopted. This paper describes the State’s approach to working with large and small rail operators and concerned citizens, and shares the lessons that address the obstacles and opportunities unique to complex railroad oil spill planning.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document