Nominal. There will be a small investment of staff time to create webpage links to existing public information.
Approximately three weeks following the November 2007 Cosco Busan 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 relating to staff and community volunteer training and mutual aid agreements.
On February 5, 2007 the Board of Supervisors referred this matter to the PPC for continuing development and oversight. Since 2007, the PPC has received periodic reports from the Health Services Department’s Hazardous Materials Program, the CAER (Community Awareness & Emergency Response) Program, and the Sheriff’s Emergency Services Division, discussing the Area Contingency Plan, Incident Command Post structure, progress of securing mutual aid agreements with local refineries, other local resources and connections available to respond to hazardous materials emergencies, the types of emergency response training and education required and available for community volunteers, deployment of convergent volunteers, and effective ways to reach out to and prepare community volunteers so that they can be an asset during a hazardous materials emergency.
On December 5, the PPC received a follow-up report from the Health Services Department on the plan for utilizing volunteer services following a hazardous materials incident. Health Services reported:
When there is a major hazardous material incident, the hazardous materials response is to stop the release, to protect the public, and to protect the environment. When there is a major oil spill or other hazardous materials incident, there may be many people that want to volunteer. How can this resource be used to the greatest extent possible and as safely as possible? The California Fish and Game Oil Spill Prevention and Response developed a plan to work with volunteers. The County’s Hazardous Materials Response Programs has developed educational material on hazardous materials and hazardous materials responses, which is available on the Health Services website and which has been presented in public meetings and events. This information will help the public to take the best actions to protect themselves during a major chemical accident or release.
Oil Spill Volunteers
The California Fish and Game Oil Spill Prevention and Response provides an application form for volunteers to sign up prior an oil spill, developed a brochure that addresses oil spill response (Attachment A), and drafted a statement for their Public Information Officers checklist to direct convergent responders (Attachment B).
Since it is not feasible to provide community volunteers the 40-hour training required to handle hazardous materials, the convergent volunteers will be used on non-oil contaminated areas as part of the response. Some of the work that they could be doing is:
• Be a field monitor
• Be a transporter
• Pre-impact beach cleanup
• Light construction
• Facility and site maintenance
• Donations management and more...
Volunteers may also apply to serve before an oil spill working with Oiled Wildlife Care Network.
The Hazardous Materials Programs can put on their website links to the Fish and Game Oil Spill Prevention and Response web page and hand out their brochures during events that we participate and at our office.
Hazardous Materials Programs Outreach
The Hazardous Materials Programs has information on the Health Services website at the following address: http://cchealth.org/groups/hazmat/. This includes information on the each of the programs that the County regulates, the Hazardous Materials Response Team, information on the Industrial Safety Ordinance, and any Major Chemical Accident or Releases that have occurred. Fact sheets have been prepared for each of the Industrial Safety Ordinance facilities listing the findings from the latest audits. The Industrial Safety Audits are submitted for comment from the public and the findings are presented at public attended meetings or events.
The Hazardous Materials Programs personnel also works with the Office of the Sheriff, industry and the CAER Group in outreaching to the community on the Community Warning System, Sheltering-in-Place and the annual School Drill for Sheltering-in-Place.
Hazardous Material Responders need to have hazardous materials awareness training (Hazwoper Training) and to have annual refresher of this training. This can be done for existing staff and is not feasible to do for the public. There would be the initial of 24 or 40 hour training, the annual 8 hour refresher training, and the upkeep of the database to track such training. The Hazardous Materials Programs could develop a means to have volunteers to assist in areas that would not bring them into contact with the hazards presented by the incident. This could include such tasks as:
• Answering phones
• Keeping a log
• Taking notes
• Transporting
Our Committee has been very pleased with the work done by the County Health Services and Sheriff’s Departments on hazardous materials incident planning. We have asked the Health Services Department to add links to the Hazardous Materials Programs webpage to instructions for volunteers on where to report for service in the case of a hazardous materials incident, how volunteers might be able to help and what kind of specific tasks they should be prepared to perform.
Our Committee has asked the Health Services Department to return in one year or sooner with a status report on any new incidents or changes to emergency response protocols.