CALIFORNIA'S RESPONSE TO POLLUTION INCIDENTS 



Walter H. Putman 1 



Now that you have heard about the national oil spill plan, let us see 

 how it affects State and local governments. The national plan, which imposes 

 a planning sequence that flows downward from the Federal Government, causes 

 considerable confusion at local levels because it fails to explain how local 

 governments are to participate. 



Since 1950, all 410 incorporated cities and 58 counties in California 

 have been operating under a master mutual aid agreement for disasters. Under 

 this mutual aid system, the city experiencing a disaster relies first on its 

 own resources to combat the problem, then calls for assistance from its neigh- 

 boring city. As the problem increases in magnitude, the city can call for 

 assistance from the county, the region, the State, and finally the Federal 

 Government --in other words, from the grass roots upward. This planning system 

 has worked well in California for fires, floods, tsunamis, riots, earthquakes, 

 and oil spills. 



In the last 8 years, we have had several pollution incidents in Cali- 

 fornia, which caused us to activate oil spill contingency plans of the Coast 

 Guard and the State. During these incidents, the Coast Guard and California's 

 On-Scene Coordinators (OSC) accomplished their goals in an efficient manner. 

 This was because both the Coast Guard's and the State's leading officers, 

 with expertise in the field of water pollution by oil, have established per- 

 sonal rapport in the planning and execution of mission assignments in their 

 respective areas of responsibility. It was during critiques of these incidents 

 that it became apparent that the coastline of California is governed on a 

 day-to-day basis by overlapping local government entities. So why, then, 

 when a pollution incident occurs, should not these local entities be involved 

 in the planning for combating the pollution incident? 



The California Oil Spill Contingency Plan reconciles any differences 

 in emergency planning by providing the local governments with all the infor- 

 mation developed by the Federal and State OSCs and including them in the 

 decisionmaking process at the operation centers. This is accomplished by 

 the local government's preassigning a representative who will have the author- 

 ity to speak for his community and to commit personnel, equipment, and facil- 

 ities to help mitigate the pollution incident. He will also have the respon- 

 sibility to keep his local levels of government informed of the corrective 

 or contemplated actions agreed upon at the operations center. 



Fish and Game Patrol Inspector 

 California Fish and Game Department 

 350 Golden Shore 

 Long Beach, California 90802 



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