SPILL RESPONSE PRIORITIES OF AN ON-SCENE COORDINATOR 



Comdr. Joseph \/alenti 

 U.S. Coast Guard 

 Washington, D.C. 



I am going to talk about the priorities of an On-Scene Coordinator (OSC) 

 during a spill incident. These are priorities of all the people who have le- 

 gitimate reasons for being at the scene and who have responsibilities to carry 

 out. The OSC, provided by either the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

 or U.S. Coast Guard, simply has the responsibility to see that this process 

 is carried out as judiciously as possible. 



Certainly, if we had to list what our priorities are I think we would all 

 agree that protection of life is foremost. Then, there are those environmen- 

 tal considerations that do not directly threaten a life that would be the next 

 things that we would have to consider. 



Now, an OSC by himself does not have all the knowledge to make these de- 

 cisions. When we come on the scene of an accident certainly most of us would 

 look around and see what is a life threatening situation and try to alleviate 

 that. Most of us would agree as to what needs to be done except when we get 

 into the technical areas where we would need specific subject experts as well. 



So, recognizing that an OSC does not have all the expertise that is need- 

 ed to deal with any of these situations, we have a mechanism set up through 

 the National Contingency Plan (40 CFR 1510) to help him. The Plan is designed 

 to get access for the OSC to people who have the information needed to make 

 good decisions. At the top of this is the National Response Team (NRT) which 

 is located in Washington, D.C. The Team has representatives from 12 or 13 

 agencies, including the 6 primary agencies. In each of the 10 Federal regions, 

 we have a Regional Response Team (RRT). And, these teams have representation 

 not only from the NRT member agencies within each region, but also have repre- 

 sentation from the State. Major municipalities around ports, rivers, and 

 harbors also should be represented on these teams. And last, but foremost, 

 the people who are in the frontline are on the Local Response Team (LRT) which 

 is headed by one of the Federal OSC's. Each of these people should have avail- 

 able a group of individuals from various agencies to assist him in carrying 

 out the tasks. 



In the past this was not the case. We had regional contingency plans and 

 there was a RRT, and an OSC pretty much had a LRT consisting of his working 

 staff. Then the U.S. Coast Guard was a little bit more fortunate than the EPA 

 because the people who are the OSC's typically are the Captains of the Port 

 and they have a decent size staff in most cases. So, they had a reasonable 



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