Are you prepared for a major disaster to strike your community? That’s the question Brad Richy, Director of the Idaho Office of Emergency Management, asks as he discusses his experiences and lessons learned after traveling to Puerto Rico and seeing firsthand the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria and the subsequent recovery. Are you prepared to provide shelter to thousands of people? Are you prepared for the truckloads of donations and the hundreds – or in Puerto Rico’s case – thousands of people that will descend on your community in an effort to help start your recovery? Director Richy’s presentation will give you a small glimpse of the vast efforts still underway, the scope of the organization required to respond and the time it takes to begin a recovery from a disaster of this magnitude.

The best oil spill response is preventing a spill in the first place. This session will focus on preventing drift groundings from floundering vessels by using offshore routing procedures, tracking technologies and an innovative emergency hook-up tool. We will also explore the potential benefit of establishing a Federal Response Advisory Committee to help focus risk management policies along the prevention/response spectrum.

This session will focus on emerging best practices for developing new geographic response plans (GRPs) and updating existing ones. They will discuss how to create useful, effective GRPs using innovative methods that are more cost effective than many traditional tools and make it easier to update plans.

This session will focus on the latest developments in spill modelling, detection, and tracking of spilled materials and ice floes. The speakers will present on their latest research and applied methods.

It goes without saying that it is better to prevent and/or mitigate groundings to avoid unnecessary adverse effects to ships. This session will focus on the use of technology and marine conditions data to maximize commerce and minimize groundings.

With fewer and fewer spills to gain experience, exercises have become a valuable part of maintaining proficiency for response teams. Experience has shown us that during exercises, NPREP requirements tend to create an unrealistic training environment. To counteract this there needs to be a well thought out approach for exercises to keep participants from getting overly focused on process and products, versus creating a more realistic response environment with appropriate emphasis on both process and managing/supporting current operational activities. To address this issue this session will focus on how to create realistic exercises to ultimately improve Incident Management Team response capabilities.

The use of best available technologies is essential for the success of a response. This session will provide detailed summaries on advances to mechanical recovery, dispersant applications, and in-situ burning.

Without a cohesive national policy to address the environmentally damaging and financial draining problem of derelict and abandoned vessels, federal funding intended for other substantial environmental challenges is inadequate to prevent and respond to this pervasive issue. Additionally, state funding can only briefly, if at all, help stem the tide. This session will address interagency complications of the derelict vessel problem, including a discussion on policy suggestions for a unified approach at the national level, and a look at current legislative efforts in Canada to create a sustainable solution.

This is a session that was created for the Emergency Planner to help them be better prepared for the inclusion of volunteers. We will learn how the different types of volunteers, affiliated, spontaneous, and micro can be integrated into response planning.

This session will be on remote sensing, unmanned aerial systems (drones), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to enhance situational awareness in support of responders. This will include field data collection and analysis supporting oceanographic modelling, SCAT, oil spill trajectory, and validation of the cause of a potential release.

Hear what you need to know to conduct business in the Pacific States and the Province of British Columbia directly from the regulators responsible for implementation and enforcement followed by an update from the Executive Coordinator of the Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force.

This session will focus on presentations and discussions illustrating challenges associated with large-scale natural disaster response and recovery, and their lessons learned. The session will conclude with a presentation by local emergency management Subject Matter Expert (SME) who will discuss regional natural disaster predicted impacts and preparedness – particularly tsunami and liquefaction (Cascadia earthquake) scenarios.

This panel discussion will focus on the impact of recent changes in Federal Preemption. The panelists will discuss how these current regulatory trends have led to the replacement of federal regulatory imperatives with state initiatives and its impact on the response industry, manufacturers, and transporters.

This session is designed for all responders, agency, industry, and NGO’s who are involved in preparing for or responding to oiled wildlife issues. The included presentations will address a variety of topics, methods, and species that touch on key issues important for understanding the broad scope of wildlife response activities both before and during incidents.

This session will highlight significant spill and hazardous materials case studies in both the marine and inland environments. A broad range of topics include a large asbestos-laden fire, a Bakken derailment cleanup, public health issues on an inland river gasoline spill, and the first 48 hours of emergency response to a large marine spill.

This session will bring together an all-star panel to discuss what it takes to affect a successful transboundary response. Emphasis will be placed on working with Tribal/First Nations.

This session highlights the challenges in paying for the response. Associated issues of derelict vessels, mass strandings, and under-insured source vessels will be examined with some practical solutions presented.

This session will focus on case studies revolving around various risk assessments that have been carried out from the Aleutians to the Columbia River. The case studies will highlight how they have influenced the prevention realm.

This session will focus on who is responsible for communicating to the public, elected officials, and other stakeholders. Speakers will present challenges, successes, and best practices.

The goal of any response to pollution is to protect the public and restore the environment. Incorporation of Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) and restoration into response planning and incident management may result in avoidance of unnecessary impact or reduced recovery time. This session explores incorporation of NRDA into planning a response, data sharing technologies during a response, and approaches to a cleanup endpoint determination that promotes recovery.