TRAINING, TESTING, DEMONSTRATING COMPETENCY AND AUDITING A DRILL OR SPILL RESPONSE: DRILLTRAC

Abstract

ABSTRACT The State of Washington developed DRILLTRAC, a training and competency program for managing oil spills and drills. DRILLTRAC represents an organizational commitment to stand-up a well qualified team at spills of all levels in order to fulfill a fundamental trust responsibility to protect public health, safety and the environment. The agency intends to hold itself to the same high standards that are expected from the regulated community. In addition, through the development of a well qualified team, the agency will be able to assist those unregulated spillers with providing an initial spill management team. DRILLTRAC consists of training and testing, required performance demonstrations at drills and spills, seeded staff to coach performance, response auditing and finally training and outreach to the community. The Program centers around a manual that is based on the 2000 Field Operations Guide (FOG), but is greatly enhanced with coaching tips, information flow diagrams and guidance on what actions need to be taken between the meetings. The manual is available on-line. During the first month it became available, the manual was downloaded over a thousand times. Some of the key training points under DRILLTRAC are:How do you ensure adequate staffing?How do you resolve conflict within unified command?How are critical decisions made by unified command documented?How does a trustee organization ensure that the interests of the state are consistently and adequately protected through the incident command system?How do you develop and measure an aggressive response?How do you ensure that the process being followed leads to the development of an aggressive, objective driven Incident Action Plan?How do you ensure consistent drill evaluation and drill design? This paper will discuss the development of the program, the goals and some of the points of organizational resistance in the implementation. DRILLTRAC builds confidence, accountability and mutual trust in spill management. It is mission driven for the state of Washington.