My name is Liz Wainwright. I am the Executive Director of the Maritime Fire & Safety Association. MFSA is a nonprofit association whose members are ports and marine terminals on the Willamette and lower Columbia Rivers. Its mission is to promote fire and environmental protection, maritime safety and the enhancement of navigation on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, in order to facilitate development of the maritime assets of the region.

MFSA maintains an umbrella oil spill contingency plan that covers commercial vessels calling in the Columbia River. The MFSA plan allows vessels to meet the oil spill response and planning requirements imposed upon vessels by Oregon and Washington law. Through our partners, Clean Rivers Cooperative and Columbia River Steamship Operators Association, MFSA maintains a network of contracted oil spill response resources on the lower Columbia River, ready to respond to oil spills from vessels or facilities.

In both its maritime fire response and oil spill response programs, MFSA promotes concepts of mutual aid assistance between stakeholders, and public and private interest partnering in order to maintain the best and most efficient response system available for the protection of marine resources and the environment on the lower Columbia River.

MFSA has consistently worked with the Coast Guard, Washington Department of Ecology and Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality to develop and maintain resources that can be available not only to the marine industry but to public agencies that respond to maritime emergencies. This includes a maritime emergency mobile command center to provide incident command support in the event of an emergency. MFSA’s wildlife response unit is a self-contained, mobile response unit available for triage and treatment of wildlife impacted by marine emergencies in Washington and Oregon. These resources were developed with the input and support of Washington DOE and Oregon DEQ and are available to these agencies as well as to the US Coast Guard in the event of an incident, training or drill not involving a MFSA or Clean Rivers member.

As indicated by this background, MFSA has a vital interest in working with the Coast Guard and Washington DOE on oil spill prevention and response initiatives affecting the Columbia River. In making comments here today, however, I am representing only the MFSA, and not the various members of industry who have an interest in spill prevention and response in their areas of operation. Moreover, the development of the Strategic Work Plan has been an initiative by the Coast Guard and Washington DOE that has not involved MFSA or industry groups on the Columbia River. Indeed, the Work Plan was only made available to us in late May, so my comments today are of necessity, general in nature. With that said, I think it is worth making the following points:

1. The Work Plan appears to focus on issues pertinent to the Puget Sound area. As such, the Work Plan may not address or adequately recognize the unique maritime operating environment that exists on the Columbia River, an operating environment that is different from Puget Sound. In approaching any work plan such as this, WDOE and the Coast Guard need to be mindful of the different bodies of water and different operating environments involved, and how these differences can affect strategic planning and priorities set in that planning.
2. Washington DOE and the Coast Guard are encouraged to develop mechanisms to ensure that further development of this Work Plan and implementation of the Work Plan are coordinated with Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality, the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Portland, and the affected industry groups along the Columbia River forming a common border with Oregon. A Strategic Work Plan can be used to improve coordination, and this should be a priority going forward.
3. The Work Plan should identify initiative and task priorities. The Work Plan should also identify the mechanism for setting priorities and who it is who sets them. There should be a clear identification of those priorities that are pertinent to the Columbia River. What may be appropriate for one body of water and operating environment may be detrimental to the environmental and commercial interests of the other.
4. The commercial maritime industry has a clear understanding of the primary responsibilities held by the Coast Guard in regulation of commercial vessels. The Work Plan does not appear to adequately distinguish those tasks or areas in which the Coast Guard has primary responsibility. The jurisdictional lines of authority between the two organizations should be clear.
5. As the parties go forward with strategic planning, there needs to be a clear distinction between existing Department of Ecology programs, those that Ecology is currently working with Coast Guard on, as opposed to new programs or initiatives that Ecology wishes to take on. There needs to be better clarification on what programs WDOE and the Coast Guard are doing together and those that are being done independently. Further, there should be better clarification as to those programs that other organizations beyond the Coast Guard and Ecology have a direct interest in. For example, the Columbia River Harbor Safety Committee squarely involves Oregon DEQ. Similarly, the Pacific States/BC Oil Spill Task Force has the direct support and involvement of Oregon DEQ, but the U.S. Coast Guard’s role is secondary.
6. MFSA believes that the available data demonstrates a significant decline in oil spills from commercial vessels since 1990. Significant improvements remain to be made in the number and impact of oil spills from recreational vessels, fishing vessels and non-marine sources such as storm water runoff. The priorities to be devoted to these areas are not clear in the Work Plan.

I appreciate the opportunity to present some abbreviated thoughts on the draft Work Plan. This has been described to MFSA as just that, a draft, and a document that will be further developed as WDOE and the Coast Guard continue their work together. We hope that this further development will involve representatives of the marine community on the Columbia River and, in particular, Oregon DEQ. Moreover, since MFSA did not have an opportunity to see the PowerPoint presentation shown by Ecology until today, I am unable to comment on that presentation, except to say that MFSA does not necessarily agree with all of the assumptions that go into the points made in that presentation.

MFSA is constantly looking for ways to improve the level of preparedness and responsiveness in its oil spill response program in the Columbia River. MFSA believes that the response system that has been developed over the years by industry, the Coast Guard, WDOE and Oregon DEQ on the Columbia River works, and works well. We particularly believe that the work of the Coast Guard in its oil spill prevention, preparedness and response initiatives on the Columbia River remains robust and effective. We would want to see any work plan adopted by Department of Ecology avoid duplication of the effective steps being taken both by the Coast Guard and Oregon’s DEQ.

In closing, from MFSA’s perspective, we need a clear picture of what in this work plan is existing work, what NEW work is called for in the plan, and what new or increased level of involvement or participation is required by industry and organizations like MFSA. We have spent the last five years working intensely with Ecology in its major overhaul of oil spill contingency planning rules and the development of the new WDOE oil transfer rules. We are now in the process of working intensely to overhaul contingency plans and meet these new rules under very tight Ecology deadlines. Quite frankly, we are exhausted. This effort is taxing the resources of industry groups and organizations like MFSA, BUT we are committed to getting the job done right and on time. We note, however, that implementation of Ecology’s new contingency planning and oil transfer rules is not expressly mentioned in the Work Plan as a major project for WDOE over the next two years. MFSA believes that implementation of these new rules should be the major work project of the WDOE spills section over the next two years.

We already have in place a spill planning and response system that is robust and working well. We would like to see the new WDOE rules implemented and then have an assessment of how the new rules are working before being asked to undertake new regulatory projects.