PREP/CANUSLAK2006

A United States Coast Guard & Canadian Coast Guard sponsored exercise

Coast Guard successes in 2006

• Increased the amount of oil spill containment boom for the region

• Conducted 3 Incident Command System level 300 classes for the region.

• Complete revision to the Area Contingency Plan

• Held Child Safety Day at Alexandria Central School

• Conducted CANUSLAK/PREP exercise

Exercise Details• The exercise started in May of 2006 with a

two day Table Top exercise to introduce the scenario and allow participants to work through the “first 12 hours” of the scenario. Standing up the command post and deciding on response objectives.

• In September of 2006 the exercise continued with the Field Deployment Exercise “CANUSLAK”. Participants re-established the UC and picked up at the “Command and General Staff Meeting” of the ICS Planning P which was where the TTX left off. By the end of the first day an IAP had been developed for the first operational period.

• The second day resumed with the Operational Brief was held and assets were deployed to test boom deployment strategies IAW the ACP.

Scenario

• On July 4th, 2006 the T/V INVICTUS ran aground at Whiskey Island in the St. Lawrence River. The grounding caused the rupture of one of the storage tanks spilling 100,000 gallons of number six oil.

Chart of Area

Chippewa Bay

Chippewa Bay area

Chippewa Bay area

Sensitive Area Chart

Chippewa Bay sensitive areas

NEPCO-140

• This scenario was very similar to the NEPCO-140 spill that happened 30 years ago. This incident spilled 75,000 Bbls. Of number six oil into the St. Lawrence. The cleanup efforts took over 4 months to complete and cost 3 million dollars with another six million dollars in claims.

Participants150 Participants from 40 different agencies.

• U.S. Coast Guard Sector Buffalo• U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment

Massena• Ninth Coast Guard District (drm), • U.S. Coast Guard Station Alexandria Bay, • Ninth Coast Guard District Public Affairs, • U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Detroit, • U.S. Coast Guard National Strike Force, • U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters (G-RPP-2), • U.S. Coast Guard MLCLANT (fcp), • U.S. Coast Guard MSU Cleveland, • U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, • Jefferson County Emergency Management• St. Lawrence County Emergency

Management• NY State Office of Emergency Management• Alexandria Bay Fire Department• Redwood Fire Department• Alexandria Bay River Hospital• Op-Tech Environmental• NY State Department of Health • NOAA• EPA

•U.S. Customs and Border Protection •NY State Police•NY State Park Police •NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (Law Enforcement and Spills) •Thousand Island Bridge Authority•Canadian Coast Guard•Transport Canada •Environment Canada•St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation•St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation •Save the River•St. Lawrence Seaway Pilots Association •New York Power Authority •Marine Pollution Control •Environmental Protection Agency•Department of the Interior•Great Lakes Commission•NY State Department of Health

Boom deployment

• There was 1600’ of containment boom deployed total.

• CCG assets conducted boom deployment on one of the US boom strategies and US CG deployed on Canadian boom strategies.

• Assets were moved over both international bridges to and from the US and Canada.

Objectives of the Exercise• The primary objective was to exercise the Area Contingency Plan in

response to a large pollution incident requiring cooperation of US and Canadian stakeholders at the Federal, State, and Local levels. Specific goals that were to be accomplished were:

• Conduct Notifications to all stakeholders/partners. • Awareness/Familiarity with the ACP plan. • Mobilization of the spill response organization as identified within the

ACP and associated plans. • Demonstrate the ability of the spill response organization to work

within a unified command with representatives from the Federal, State and Local level.

• Test internal and external communications and establish and effective communications system for the spill response organization.

• Demonstrate the ability of the unified command to operate within the framework of the ICS structure identified within the plan and create an Incident Action Plan (IAP) in accordance with the guidance of the plans.

• Demonstrate the ability of the spill response organization to contain the discharge at the source or in various locations for recovery operations.

Positive Lessons Learned

• Use of Incident Command System (ICS) by participants.

– Prior to the exercise Sector Buffalo conducted 2 ICS 300 classes which greatly improved the understanding of participants

– Exercise worked through entire ICS “Planning P”

– Comprehensive Incident Action Plan was developed

– Continuing education of agencies to improve understanding of ICS/RMS

Field deployment of containment boom on both sides executed in accordance with the IAP

• Although we only tested a select few sensitive areas (for time reasons) for boom deployment the sites tested worked well IAW the ACP

• The ACP was not utilized as much as we would have liked to have seen.

Cross border movement of assets was tested using water and land assets.

• During the exercise assets from the US side deployed boom on Canadian sensitive sites and Canadian assets deployed on US sensitive sites

• Cross border movement was tested both by waterborne assets and movement of vehicles with equipment across the International Bridge.

CCG Cutter Griffon

Side sweep oil recovery system

Things to work on• Communications in the area,

lack of cellular phone coverage and marine radio “dead zones”

– Communications were run through Jefferson County with their ACU 1000, which made interagency communications possible.

– This effort was hindered by “dead zones” throughout the local area which made radio comms very limited.

– Cell phone coverage is also spotty at best in the area depending on the carrier used

Ensure that the local county representatives are getting the support that they need when submitting for grants to improve things such as the

resurfacing of the local airfield and improving the infrastructure of the Fire Hall to make it a more “useable” Command Post.

• The fire hall was not a good location for the Command Post, although large enough it did not provide the equipment necessary to run an effective command post out of. i.e. phone lines, copiers, internet access.

• Security into and out of the command post was also an issue due to the numerous entry doors into the facility – at one point a gentleman actually walked into the building and asked one member of the unified command “what was going on”?

• Working with local officials to try and help them get grant monies to improve the local airfield which would not be able to accommodate assets such as the AST if necessary, the next nearest airfield is 30 minutes away.

Ensuring that the proper agencies are in the Unified Command structure when dealing with cross border issues

• When dealing with cross border issues we learned that having a representative from both countries that can make decisions on Customs issues would speed up the process

• One of the only problems was that the US vehicle did not have a manifest with them which slowed their entrance to Canada

Take lessons learned from CANUSLAK and improve the Area Contingency Plan.

• Overall PREP/CANUSLAK was an extremely successful exercise. Sector Buffalo is currently taking lessons learned from this and other Sector Exercises and are re-developing the ACP with assistance from the Area Committee

Just to make it more interesting…

• This occurred during the exercise, so along with participating in a full field deployment exercise many participants were dealing with the real thing….

M/V Toro Grounding

• On 05 SEP 06 at 2048, M/V TORO was down bound St. Lawrence Seaway IVO buoy #1, when the vessel, loaded with canola seed, ran aground outside marked channel, suffering hull damage and flooding fore peak and #1 DB STBD.

• No pollution was discharged. After almost two weeks of lightering, the vessel floated free.

M/V Toro

M/V Toro

CAN/US Joint Objectives

1. Establishment of a joint US/CAN IAP

2. Exchange of Liaison Officers between the US and CAN

3. Cross border deployment/monitoring of response personnel and equipment

Internal CCG Objectives

1. Coordination of RRT 2500T Suite Deployment – Logistics of representative sample

2. Deployment of Command and Control Trailer

3. Creation of IAP – Stemming from Table Top and incorporation of REET Support

Questions?