Department of the Interior Grant: Spill Response Plan for St. Croix National Scenic Riverway

The Upper Mississippi River Basin Association (UMRBA) proposes to work with the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service (NPS) to create state-of-the-art spill response planning tools for the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. The St. Croix is home to outstanding natural resources and provides for unique recreational opportunities. The function of the spill plan developed in this project will be to support timely and effective response on the Riverway. The anticipated process by which these tools are developed, proposed products, and a draft project timeframe and budget are described in the following paragraphs. UMRBA fully expects to work in collaboration with NPS in shaping both the trajectory of the project and its final products. As such, this proposal outlines anticipated activity which will be adjusted as needed during the life of the project.

The UMRBA has played a key role in spill response planning and coordination through the Upper Mississippi River Hazardous Spills Coordination Group, and in its Spill Response Mapping and Planning activities. Since 1989, the UMRBA has provided staff support for the Upper Mississippi River Hazardous Spills Coordination Group (UMR Spills Group), which includes representatives of state and federal agencies who play a role in contingency planning and spill response on the river. The UMR Spills Group providing a forum for interagency coordination, serves as a voice for the region’s spill responders on various issues and helps in the preparation and execution of training activities.

Among the Group’s accomplishments are development and maintenance of the Upper Mississippi River Spill Response Plan and Resource Manual, which has been adopted by the state and federal agency members of the UMR Spills Group. The UMR Plan is designed to complement broader regional and national contingency plans by addressing issues and concerns related specifically to spill response on the Upper Mississippi River. The Plan includes a resource manual which contains information about potential spill sources, vulnerable resources, and response assets.

A. The Recipient agrees to:

(UMRBA anticipates the following steps will be part of spill plan development, pending input from NPS)

1. Resource Inventory and Hazard Analysis
UMRBA will review existing data, maps, and other information to determine where on the Riverway there are high value natural resources, potential spill sources, and — most importantly – where these two come together to produce areas of elevated relative risk. Where appropriate, GIS-based tools will be used to aid the inventory and analysis. The initial desktop analysis will be shared with NPS and other regional partners to gather their input and refine as needed. This resource inventory and hazard analysis will be utilized to help identify target areas for the development of more detailed geographically-focused spill response plans (see below).

2. Riverway-Wide Information Compilation
Alongside the initial resource inventory and hazard analysis, UMRBA will compile information relevant throughout the Riverway beyond the areas targeted for detailed geographic response plan development. This may include county-by-county descriptions of response capacity, maps of sensitive resources, contact person/agency phone numbers, highway crossings, outfalls, and other information as determined necessary by NPS and other regional partners.

3. Detailed Geographic Response Plan Development
Based on the initial resource inventory/hazard analysis, and participant feedback, UMRBA will facilitate the creation of detailed geographic response plans for targeted segments of the Riverway. We anticipate this will follow a process successfully employed elsewhere in the region. This process typically includes 1) a meeting of resource managers to confirm resources as risk in the target area, 2) a meeting of response professionals to confirm potential spill sources and develop initial recommendations for response strategies, and 3) a field day to test proposed response strategies. Depending on the scope of target areas identified, there may be multiple meeting series or just a single set. Further, we presume that in areas where response strategies have been developed in the past (i.e., between Taylors Fall and Marine on St. Croix, and between Afton State Park and Prescott), these pre-existing strategies will be modernized and incorporated into any new GRPs developed as part of this project.

4. Initial Action Plan Development
For each of the target areas where strategies are developed under the GRP process described above, a template initial action plan (IAP) for the first operational period will be created and integrated into the GRP product.

5. Final Product Review and Assembly
All of the materials described above will be assembled for review by NPS and other partners. Partner input will be utilized in the creation of final deliverables (as described in the next section).

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

The primary product anticipated from this project is a spill response plan for the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, delivered on digital media (DVD), which includes the following:

• Detailed maps depicting sensitive resources throughout the Riverway.
• Descriptions of local response capacity in each of the counties in the Riverway.
• A list of key contact persons/agencies/entities along the Riverway, along with a recommended notification protocol.
• Lists of key physical features (highway crossings, outfalls, etc.) along the Riverway.
• In identified target areas, detailed geographic response plans (GRPs) which include response strategies and incident action plans (IAPs).
• Other, pre-existing, spill response tools (e.g., inland tactics manual, habitat-specific fact sheets).
• Explore options for secure, online sharing of the spill response plan.

NPS is substantially involved with this agreement and agrees to:
• Participate and collaborate jointly with the Recipient in carrying out the scope of work.
• To provide a NPS technical representative to assist with specifics of the project as needed.
• Review and approve one stage of work before the next stage can begin.
• Review and approve proposed modifications or sub-grants, prior to award.
• Direct or redirect the work because of interrelationships with other projects.
• Immediately halt an activity if detailed performance specifications are not met.
• Oversee Recipient discretion with respect to scope of work, organizational structure, staffing, mode of operations and other management processes, combined with close monitoring or operational involvement during performance under this Agreement.