SITE INFORMATION AND SPILL RESPONSE STRATEGY (SISRS) AND THE SISRS DATABASE: CALIFORNIA'S APPROACH TO MARINE OIL SPILL PROTECTION PLANNING AND RESPONSE FOR SENSITIVE SITES1

Abstract

ABSTRACT The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has developed a database of sensitive site information and oil spill protection strategies as a part of the California coastal contingency planning. The Site Information and Spill Response Strategy (SISRS) approach was developed to enable involvement and ownership of Port Area Contingency Plan (ACP) strategies among stakeholders, as well as provide consistency in site documentation and strategy development for the widely variable habitats of the long California coast. Through site visits and tabletop discussions, the Area Committee uses this approach to incorporate the input of state and federal trustees, contingency planners, and stakeholders (industry, spill response co-ops and contractors, environmentalists, other agencies) to form a consensus on the appropriate site protection strategies and response resources. This information is stored in the SISRS database. The SISRS database has important benefits. It generates uniform Site Summary and Site Strategy pages across the six ACPs of California. Through the Internet, the database maximizes the opportunity to use the ACP as both a planning tool and a response tool. As a planning tool, the ACP and the generative database, maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), is the relatively rigid benchmark for the contingency planning for regulated facilities and vessels under state and federal laws, and is a ready digital information source. As a response tool, DFG maintains the SISRS database (on its Web site), which includes strategy revisions as often as the Area Committee approves revisions and updates. This database is used to expedite the spill response and produce Incident Command System (ICS) response documents with the most current information. The response version is a ready source of information for third-party software products for spill response management, such as response forms and resource ordering and management documents.