Resolution 16-046 Opposing Update to Annex B Unified Plan for Oil and Hazardous Substance Discharges

CITY OF HOMER
HOMER, ALASKA

Aderhold

RESOLUTION 16-046

A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF HOMER, ALASKA, OPPOSING THE PROPOSED UPDATE TO ANNEX B OF THE ALASKA FEDERAL/STATE PREPAREDNESS PLAN FOR RESPONSE TO OIL AND HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCE DISCHARGES/RELEASES (UNIFIED PLAN).

WHEREAS, The Unified Plan is a federal and state preparedness plan that guides pollution and spill cleanup in Alaska; and

WHEREAS, Health of marine resources are critically important to Homer’s coastal community economy which relies heavily on fishing, tourism, mariculture, and marine trades; and

WHEREAS, In the current Unified Plan, the City of Homer, as a stakeholder, is eligible to participate on the Regional Stakeholder Committee (RSC) with direct access to Unified Command and access to important information and decisions during a spill response; and

WHEREAS, The City of Homer is a member of a Regional Citizens Advisory Council (RCAC) and as such has been represented on the RSC in the Unified Plan for twenty-five years with direct access to Unified Command and the Incident Action Plan (IAP) and a clear process for providing local knowledge and information critical for protecting public interests; and

WHEREAS, An Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation’s proposed update to Annex B of the Unified Plan eliminates the RSC and replaces it with two separate stakeholder groups, Tribal and Local Government Group and Affected Stakeholder Group (Groups), who will only communicate with Unified Command through the Responsible Party’s Liaison Officer; and

WHEREAS, The proposed changes negatively impact the City of Homer’s participation in protecting critical resources and compromises the region’s overall response effectiveness to hazardous spills by:

No longer guaranteeing direct access to the Unified Command.  Communication only through the Responsible Party’s Liaison Officer  does not guarantee that community issues will be accurately communicated back to government officials within the Unified Command;
Disrupting cooperative and collaborative decision making opportunities that currently occur when stakeholders work as one joint group under a Regional Stakeholder Committee to improve the spill response effort;
Decreasing access to information about how the spill will be cleaned up. Only limited portions of the IAP may be provided to the Tribal and Local Government Group that the Responsible Party’s Liaison Officer deems to be pertinent.  There is no mention of any portions of the IAP being provided to the Affected Stakeholders Group. Yet, the IAP is the plan the Responsible Party develops to clean up the spill and provides detail critical to providing meaningful input to the response;
Eliminating the ability for experts within the proposed Affected Stakeholders Group, such as RCACs, from providing expertise on incident priorities, objectives and the IAP, or other technical or scientific matters. Communication of complex technical, operational, and scientific advice would not be effective using this proposed communication system.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Homer City Council requests the proposed update to Annex B of the Unified Plan be withdrawn and the existing Regional Stakeholder Committee process be retained.

PASSED AND ADOPTED by the Homer City Council this 25th day of April, 2016.

CITY OF HOMER

________________________
MARY E. WYTHE, MAYOR
 

ATTEST:

______________________________
JO JOHNSON, MMC, CITY CLERK

Fiscal Note: N/A