Earlier this week, Rear Adm. Paul Thomas, assistant commandant for prevention policy, had the opportunity to give remarks during several sessions at the 2017 Nor-Shipping Conference in Oslo, Norway. Each session included many other international participants representing government and private sector interests. In this post, Thomas gives the Coast Guard perspective on global capacity building in the face of the complex and modern marine transportation system.
5/25/2017: IOSC Recap #4-Tank Barge APEX 3508: Best practices for detection and recovery of sunken oil
Fourth in our IOSC series is a recap of a presentation by Cmdr. Mark Sawyer, commanding officer of Marine Safety Unit Paducah, Kentucky, titled “T/B APEX 3508 Case Study: Best Practices for Detection and Recovery of Sunken Oil.” APEX 3508 released an estimated 120,500 gallons of slurry oil into the Mississippi River after two tugboats collided near Columbus, Kentucky in September 2015. The majority of the oil sank to the riverbed and Sawyer shared with conference attendees some of the challenges responders faced when recovering sunken oil, lessons learned, and recommendations for future incidents.
5/25/2017: IOSC Recap #3-Tank Barge Argo: A case study on the employment of NCP special teams
Next up in our IOSC series, is a recap of a presentation by Cmdr. Tedd Hutley, commanding officer of the Atlantic Strike Team, titled “Tank Barge Argo: A Case Study on the Employment of NCP Special Teams.” The Argo was a small tank barge that sank in Lake Erie, Ohio in 1937 and began leaking over 70 years later.
5/23/2017: IOSC 2017 Recap #2-In a hostile environment? Skills needed for success
Is it realistic to expect you’ll meet all stakeholder needs during a response? It is a question all incident commanders from any segment of the oil spill response community should ask themselves. Lt. Cmdr. Danielle Shupe, an instructor at the Coast Guard’s Training Center in Yorktown, Virginia, had the opportunity to answer that question from a Coast Guard perspective during last week’s International Oil Spill Conference in Long Beach, California. We continue our IOSC series with a condensed version of Shupe’s remarks on the subject. These remarks are not ‘as delivered’ but provide a condensed version in the ‘panel-conversational’ style.
5/23/2017: IOSC 2017 Recap #1- Time for a refresh in the pre-spill planning consultation process
To kick off our IOSC recap series, first up is a presentation by Lt. Cmdr. Stacey Crecy on changes to laws and policies governing oil spill preparedness and the pre-spill planning process.
