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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 05062008 - D.2 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS = FROM. PUBLIC PROTECTION COMMITTEE ,S C WE: March 17, 2008 `�o ST'9 COL7Iv� COU11L y SUBJECT: OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE COORDINATION OF RESPONSE TO DISASTERS AND OTHER PUBLIC EMERGENCIES SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS 1. RECALL that approximately three weeks following the November 7, 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in the San Francisco Bay, the Office of the Sheriff debriefed the Board of Supervisors on what aspects of the emergency response effort worked and did not work effectively. 2. REQUEST the Office of the Sheriff to: ♦ evaluate the existing rules that govern the use of convergent volunteers in an oil spill incident, and report its findings to the Public Protection Committee. ♦ negotiate and return to the Board with models for formal agreements with oil industry associations to provide expert assistance and resources to the County to respond to oil spill and other hazardous materials emergencies CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: ❑ YES SIGNATURE: ❑ RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR [1-R6 OMM ATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE [qAPPROVE ❑ OTHER SIGNATURE(S): JOHN GIOIA, CHAIR FEDERAL D. GLOVER ACTION OF BOARD ON APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER R ADOPTED the recommendations and ADDED a request of the office of the Sheriff to seek financial grants enhance the County's response ability. VOTE OF SUPERVISORS: I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE AND ��II CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AND �V UNANIMOUS (ABSENT) ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTAIN: ATTESTED: MAY 6, 2008 Contact: JULIE ENEA (925) 335-1077 JOHN CULLEN, CLERK OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR cc: COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR SHERIFF-CORONER HEALTH SERVICES DIRECTOR RISK MANAGER Deputy COUNTY COUNSEL Improving Coordination of Emergency/Disaster Response March 17,2008 County Administrator's Office Page 2 ♦ work with the Health Services Department to develop a training program for city and county employees who wish to serve as volunteer disaster response workers, and to identify the associated costs and ways to finance this effort ♦ work with local oil and chemical refineries to determine how many of their employees have had HazWOper training ♦ expand current mutual aid agreements for fire and chemical releases to include oil spills 3. DIRECT the Human Resources Department to explore with the Office of the Sheriff, the Health Services Department, Risk Management, and the County Counsel's Office, the possible development of program to register and train volunteers to provide aid during a disaster or public emergency, and to report back to the Public Protection Committee with a program outline, staffing need, fiscal impact and financing plan, and recommendations for implementation, if feasible. 4. ACKNOWLEDGE that a preliminary proposal to build a public safety command center is on referral to the Capital Facilities Committee and is being considered as part of the overall list of County capital facilities needs and available funding for capital needs priorities. 5. ACKNOWLEDGE that current financial resources do not support the Federal Emergency Management Administration's recommended staffing level of one emergency planner for every 100,000 people and that the County's current cadre of emergency planners meets approximately 42% of that standard staffing level. 6. REQUEST the Legislation Committee to study and evaluate possible federal and state legislative amendments to provide local governments better ability to respond during local disasters and public emergencies to meet local needs and concerns for public safety and asset protection, including the minimum training requirement for community volunteers to be eligible to assist in hazardous material disasters. FISCAL IMPACT :Existing staff resources will be required to conduct the recommended analyses and implement the recommended actions. Costs identified through the recommended analysis would be incurred only upon County Administrator and Board of Supervisors approval. BACKGROUND On November 7, 2007 the container ship Cosco Busan struck the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil into the San Francisco Bay. Over the next several days, the spill spread out through the Golden Gate and contaminated wildlife and the shorelines of San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. The incident was managed by a unified command consisting of the United States Coast Guard, the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, and the incident management group hired by the owners of the Cosco Busan. Improving Coordination of Emergency/Disaster Response March 17,2008 County Administrator's Office Page 3 The Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff took a proactive role in this incident from the beginning. The Sheriff s Office of Emergency Services established a presence at the Incident Command Post and actively pursued the interests of the citizens of Contra Costa County. As in any incident of this nature,there are lessons to be learned and remedies to implement. Approximately three weeks following the oil spill,the Sheriff's Office of Emergency Services (OES)presented to the Board of Supervisors its assessment of the emergency response efforts, including what worked well and didn't work well, and what lessons were learned through those experiences. At the conclusion of the Board discussion, Supervisor Gioia introduced five recommendations that were approved by the Board. Supervisor Gioia also convened meetings within his District to discuss the implementation of the recommendations. On February 5,the Board of Supervisors referred this matter to the Public Protection Committee for continuing development and oversight. Following is a summary of Sheriff's analysis of the Cosco Busan oil spill response, provided to our Committee in March: ♦ Area Contingency Plan (ACP). The ACP is the controlling document or"plan"that is used to provide guidance in an oil spill event. The document is over ten years old and provides a comprehensive strategic and tactical plan. Along with contamination prevention strategies, command and control issues, and equipment needs, it sets parameters for convergent volunteers and other concerns that arise in an event of this nature. While the ACP remains a reasonable and comprehensive document, some edits may be needed with respect to volunteer management. The ACP places the control and management of convergent volunteers under the Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) and not under the local jurisdictions. Operationally, this causes confusion and delays as the local incident response structures do not normally work with federal entities. During the Cosco Busan incident, private industry (Chevron, in particular) contacted Contra Costa County OES and offered assistance in the form of booming material. The resources were eventually deployed outside of the incident command structure. Sheriff staff learned that private industry had the resources and was more than willing to assist in an emergency. The County should take advantage of private industry's willing partnership to formalize agreements (where possible) to assist in a similar crisis in the future. ♦ Relocation of Incident Command Post (ICP). In the early hours of the Cosco Busan incident, the ICP was established at Fort Mason in San Francisco. As the magnitude of the spill became apparent, the individuals managing the event recognized that Fort Mason would not be able to support the long-term activation that this incident required. They made a proper decision to move the ICP to a larger facility on Treasure Island. The facility they chose (an abandoned officers' club) was of sufficient size to accommodate the operation. However, it had none of the infrastructure (phones, phone lines, furniture, internet infrastructure, etc.) needed to support an ICP. It was well into the second week before phone lines, internet connectivity, and other necessities were in place for the entire building. The operational delays associated with relocating the ICP negatively impacted wildlife and the environment, Improving Coordination of Emergency/Disaster Response March 17,2008 County Administrator's Office Page 4 resulting in long term economic damage that has and will affect the community in the future. • This example is relevant to Contra Costa County. Currently, OES believes that in an activation of moderate size, it would need to relocate the EOC/ICP to a larger facility. While plans are being made for this inevitability, there are contingencies that cannot be anticipated (e.g., available and serviceable buildings in an earthquake). In a natural disaster such as an earthquake, the necessity to move the ICP may have a substantial impact on the County's ability to receive and prioritize information, respond to life threatening situations, and recover from the event. A relocation of the ICP in a County emergency could delay coordination of resources by as much as 24 hours. The extent to which such a delay might affect the citizens of this county will be largely dependant on the nature of the incident. ♦ ICP Limited Hours of Operation. For reasons that remain unclear, the unified command effectively shut down the ICP at approximately 7:00 p.m. each evening of this event. This had the affect of delaying the planning cycle and plan implementation for 24 hours. In an activation of the Contra Costa County EOC,the County would attempt to staff the center for 24 hours, 7 days per week and for as long as five to six weeks (or longer depending on the nature of the disaster). With current staffing levels, this level of operation would be impossible. The County currently has five full time emergency management staff. In a full-scale activation with approximately 75 to 100 individuals in the EOC, current emergency management staff will not be able to meet the demand for coverage. This staffing deficit is compounded by the nature of the environment in Contra Costa County, where we have chemical plants, oil refineries, levees, wildfire concerns, and major earthquake faults. By FEMA standards, Contra Costa County should more than double its emergency planning staff. ♦ Deployment of Convergent Volunteers. Convergent volunteers was possibly the most problematic issue for the incident managers in terms of public perception. The public's perception that the unified command failed to properly manage the convergent volunteers undermined the already fragile confidence the public has in government's ability to respond to and properly manage a disaster. Convergent volunteer management during an oil spill event differs from other large scale incidents such as fires and earthquakes. The presence of a"toxic substance" (in this case, bunker fuel) inherently changes and limits the ability of the public to be involved absent proper training. Once the spill has occurred, the ACP does an adequate job of identifying tasks that untrained convergent volunteers could be assigned to perform. More fundamentally is the need for properly trained volunteers to assist in disaster relief. Convergent volunteers, when properly trained, can be a valuable resource and make a significant contribution to the response and relief efforts of agencies prepared to use them. To fully utilize community volunteers, it would behoove the County to develop a Convergent Volunteer Management Plan that defines what volunteers will do, how many will be needed, and . who will supervise them. The plan should address: Improving Coordination of Emergency/Disaster Response March 17,2008 County Administrator's Office Page 5 ♦ Leadership ♦ Specific Volunteer Functions/Tasks ♦ Procedures ♦ Policies ♦ Liability Coverage A management team led by the Human Resources Department could be tasked with developing a plan to manage and deploy disaster relief volunteers. The following County Departments could assist Human Resources in the development and implementation of the plan: ♦ The Office of the Sheriff, with respect to site security and providing background checks on site. ♦ The Health Services Department, with respect to baseline testing and on site medical aid. ♦ Environmental Health, with respect to HazWOper training. ♦ Risk Management and County Counsel, with respect to reviewing the liability to the County regarding such a plan. he county of Contra Costa is home to the largest concentration of oil refining facilities on the west coast of the United States and sits at the gateway to the Sacramento Delta. The potential for a much larger ecological disaster as a result of an oil tanker based spill, is substantial. The resulting damage to the environment, economy, and the quality of life of the citizens of Contra Costa County would be considerable. The need for a well-coordinated and sustained response from all involved entities has been highlighted by the Cosco Busan incident. The Cosco Busan oil spill provided the County OES with an opportunity to practically exercise its emergency response protocol and identify critical gaps. Learning from the lessons provided by the Cosco Busan incident will help the County to anticipate and avoid problems and issues that encumbered relief efforts. Incident Overview At 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday,November 7, 2007, the container ship Cosco Busan struck the eastern most pylon fender of the western Bay Bridge span (between Treasure Island and San Francisco). The freighter sustained a tear in its outer hull, rupturing the fuel bunker. Initial reports indicated that approximately 150 gallons of fuel was spilled into the San Francisco Bay. This estimate later proved to be grossly understated. By 9:00 p.m. that evening, the estimate was revised upward to an incredible 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil. On the morning of Thursday,November 8, based on conditions, Sheriff's OES activated the EOC at Level 4 active monitoring and reporting). Additionally, the OES deployed a Senior Planner to the western shore area of the county to conduct a visual assessment of the predesignated environmentally sensitive sites, and sent an Emergency Planner to the Incident Command Post (ICP) at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Improving Coordination of Emergency/Disaster Response March 17,2008 County Administrator's Office Page 6 On the afternoon of Friday,November 9, the Emergency Planner reported back from the ICP that operational area representatives were having difficulty getting information from the individuals managing the incident. She reported that Op Area representatives were housed in a trailer for meeting purposes and that no input was being sought from the area representatives. On the evening of Saturday,November 10, the unified command moved the ICP from Fort Mason to Treasure Island due to the need for more space. Sheriff's OES observed that at the new ICP, there was no internet connectivity, furniture, telephones or communications infrastructure. As liaison representatives, Sheriff's staff were physically adjacent to the command post but removed from the planning and decision- making environment and process. Intelligence sharing was limited, belated, and there was little, if any, integration in the SEMS structure. Unified command provided no response to staff's multiple requests for information or offers of local response resources. As the day progressed,things did not substantially improve. Additionally, it was learned that the incident command post would be shut down overnight. Later, in response to Sheriff OES concerns and obligations to Contra Costa County, unified command elected to deploy local resources outside of the of the incident command structure. OES staff took a number of independent, proactive steps including but not limited to helicopter reconnaissance missions, search and rescue reconnaissance missions, repositioning of Sheriff's Marine Patrol assets to western Contra Costa County, deploying the County Public Information Officer to the Joint Information Center, deploying booming material from Chevron to protect Meeker Slough, and tasking Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Teams to East Bay Regional Parks to conduct shoreline cleanup operations. On Sunday,November 11, Contra Costa County staff that had deployed to the ICP additionally sought and formed an informal coalition with Alameda County emergency services staff, and representatives from East Bay Regional Park District(EBRPD) and the City of Berkeley, in order to facilitate a cohesive and efficient response in East Bay area. The coalition consulted and acted in concert, when possible, for the duration of the activation. On Monday,November 12,the issue of convergent volunteers had gained considerable attention in the media and the ICP. The main concern and problem centered on the inability to use volunteers for oil spill cleanup. The Area Coordination Plan(ACP) is the document used to manage an incident of this type. It, along with OSHA regulations prevents volunteers from cleaning oil spills. The mandated "HazWOper (Hazardous Waste Operations) Training" requires 24 hours of instruction. The public frustration with their inability to assist in the cleanup developed into a perception that "government bureaucracy and inefficiency"was needlessly hampering the cleanup efforts. These sentiments were reported by the media and brought pressure to the ICP for a remedy. This issue was exacerbated by many volunteers (especially in :Berkeley and San Francisco) ignoring official health warnings and cleaning the oiled beaches and collecting contaminated wildlife on their own. The unified command held several meetings to attempt to resolve this problem, and Contra Costa County OES staff participated in those meetings. Unified command formulated an ad hoc plan to waive the training requirements for the volunteers, provide a limited amount of personal protective equipment (PPE), and permit the convergent volunteers to clean oiled beaches. Sheriff OES decided not to involve Contra Costa County and its citizens in this plan due to health, safety, and liability concerns. Subsequent reports indicated that this training went well and the cleanup efforts were successful. However, long-term health Improving Coordination of Emergency/Disaster Response March 17,2008 County Administrator's Office Page 7 and legal concerns remain. By Tuesday, November 13, a large portion of the "Gross Contamination" in Contra Costa County had been mitigated. On November 16, Contra Costa County declared a local state of emergency that remains in effect as of this writing. OES staff anticipates leaving the declaration in place until the ongoing cleanup process is completed. The OES will continue to monitor the cleanup efforts with its counterparts in the City of Richmond and East Bay Regional Parks District. • • • Intentionally Blank s •