Sessions

Panelists in this session met last year and will come together again to continue the dialogue on how different jurisdictions continue to build capacity in tribal and First Nations communities.

Preparing for and responding to spills requires a continual commitment and focus on emerging tactics, training, and technology by all stakeholders. Session speakers will cover a full range of preparedness and response topics.

Timely, accurate, and actionable situation data is hard to come by. Where is the oil, how much is there, and where is it going? We hear about the new technological advances every day but getting from an idea to the field is a giant leap. Science fiction has become a reality with smart buoys, ground-penetrating radar, and autonomous drones. In this session, our distinguished panel will take you to the jungles of Venezuela, Bligh Island in British Columbia, and travel beneath the waves to detect and recover oil at depth.

This experienced group of speakers will discuss 2021’s pipeline release off the coast of Southern California. The session discussions will bring to light the unique challenges and best practices found in managing a response of this nature involving a multitude of stakeholders, large Area of Responsibility (AOR), and fluctuating on-scene remote and hybrid work environments. The speakers will bring varied perspectives from incident command, federal on-scene coordinator, and other incident response roles.

Both natural and human-caused disasters can create large amounts of marine debris that enter the ocean and waterways all at once. Unlike episodic oil spill events, marine debris, defined as any manufactured solid material, is persistent in the marine environment. After natural disasters like floods, hurricanes/typhoons, and tsunamis, marine debris and abandoned vessels are a persistent environmental issue often made more complex by the limited funding sources for clean-up operations. Marine casualty events, such as the recent Golden Ray and X-Press Pearl incidents, involving marine debris response and recovery operations, also present challenges to responders that require innovative solutions. This session will feature several diverse marine debris case studies and explore associated best practices and lessons learned followed by a panel discussion

Sharing information and data can be challenging, especially when the information is difficult to find or complicated to interpret. Mapping tools, dashboards and indicators, and targeted workshops and webinars can assist us in sharing this technical information. Speakers will provide examples of how they have made technical information accessible to a broad audience, followed by a panel discussion regarding best practices for making information and data both accessible and understandable. 

Responding to any incident is a collaborative event from which we can learn and enhance response planning to account for varying types of hazards. This session will look at responses to varying hazards which used the same tools from spill response to solve the unique challenges presented by a changing climate. Climate change is affecting us all, whether it is from an increase of frequency or intensity of natural disasters or due to our own human intervention/interactions with the natural environment. We can use the lessons learned in spill response and apply them in new ways to rise to the challenges of our changing landscape. 

This session will present a mix of industry, wildlife experts, and a key trustee agency to cover a breadth of topics around impacts and management of wildlife during spills. Speakers will provide their experience along with updates to ongoing programs specific to the region.