EVALUATING THE CONSENSUS ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT WORKSHOP AS A TOOL FOR FACILITATING DECISION-MAKING DURING SPILL RESPONSE AND PLANNING

Abstract

ABSTRACT In early 2007, NOAA'S Environmental Response Division (ERD) initiated a project to evaluate the effectiveness of Consensus Ecological Risk Assessment (CERA) workshops in improving spill response planning and increasing awareness of response options and their limitations. A CERA workshop is a spill drill in which participants, especially resource trustees, learn and practice a risk-based method for assessing the relative benefits and impacts of alternative response actions, including no response, open water cleanup, dispersion, in situ burning, and shoreline cleanup. Most CERAs have been sponsored by the US Coast Guard and all have been co-facilitated by ERD. Since 1998, 15 regional CERA workshops and four national spill drills have involved more than 700 people from about two dozen nations. While anecdotal information indicates that the workshops have prompted some changes in spill response and response planning, ERD'S research project is the first directed effort to systematically investigate the nature and extent of these changes. ERD'S inquiry is designed to answer three questions: (1) What has been the importance of the ERA process to people who have participated in them? (2) What has been the impact of the CERA process on spill response and spill response planning in the US? (3) How can the CERA workshop format be improved? ERD'S evaluation process relies on two primary methods widely used by social scientists: (1) surveys and unstructured interviews of CERA participants, and (2) qualitative analysis of participant comments and recommendations captured during past workshops. Initial results of ERD'S research will be reported