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RCAC conducting spill response workshops
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, or PWSRCAC, is organizing a series of spill response workshops in Southcentral Alaska communities. The idea is to inform community leaders, tribal organizations, people from organizations potentially impacted by an oil spill and anyone else who might become involved in a response about how a spill response is conducted, who the players are, how decisions are made and what the legal framework of laws and regulations is, Jeremy Robida, project manager for oil spill response operation for PWSRCAC, told Petroleum News.
Reponses to oil spill disasters such as Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon were marred by some confusion around roles and responsibilities, with the Deepwater Horizon response, for example, being disrupted at times by conflicts between local governments and the team conducting the response.
With an understanding of how an oil spill response is actually conducted, people can better understand how they might interact with the response effort, what their roles might or might not be, and how they could perhaps offer help.
“Hopefully we can avoid some of that finger pointing, anger and confusion in the heat of battle and have a chance to meet folks and talk through some of the issues in a calm, cool, collective way,” Robida said.
System overview The one-day workshop agenda includes a brief overview of the incident command system, the organizational and procedural system that is standard for a U.S. oil spill response, while also reviewing the various laws, plans and government agency responsibilities under which the system operates. The workshops address specific oil spill planning and response arrangements in Alaska’s Prince William Sound; they also overview the means whereby communities can interact with a response effort.
An initial workshop held in the city of Homer on the Kenai Peninsula at the end of May attracted attendance by a variety of people from organizations including the city administration, Cook Inlet village councils, the local shellfish growers’ association and state agencies.
Further workshops are scheduled in Whittier on Sept. 27 and Seward on Oct. 2. The PWSRCAC is also hoping to conduct a workshop in Cordova, Robida said. Robida asked that people pre-register for the workshops: his email address is [email protected].
—Alan Bailey
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