[StBernard] National Incident Commander, US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen's Response to Meeting with Governor and Parish Officials yesterday

[Westley Annis]

National Incident Commander, US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen's Response to
Meeting with Governor and Parish Officials Thursday, July 29
Released by the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center (Excerpt
from press briefing on 7/29/2010)
 
"The thing I'd like to talk about probably most today is we had a very, very
consequential meeting earlier today, a little over two hours, attended by
Governor Jindal and the Parish Presidents of Southern Louisiana.

We talked about a range of issues including local coordination for spill
response, coordination as we move from response into recovery, what the
implications are of the static kill and the potential bottom kill of the
well, how we might want to move forward together, how we can involve the
local parishes in that planning, how the parishes then integrate with the
state to combine with us to understand the way forward as we shift from more
recovery intensive operations excuse me response operations to long-term
recovery operations.

 

"And there were three general areas that we had a discussion on and reached
agreement.  The first one was to involve the state and the parishes in a set
of principles or criteria by which we can assess how to move forward from
response to recovery and this includes how we want to take a look at how
much oil is out there, how it's coming to shore. As there becomes less oil
how to we basically get to the inevitable question of how clean is clean?
How do we come back and respond where oil shows up on beaches after we've
already dealt with oil beaches and removed the threat. We are seeking input
by next week from the parishes into that set of criteria.  That will help us
develop a longer term plan.  As we move towards the static kill and the
bottom kill we want to be ready when we finally remove the threat of oil
discharge at all to understand where it is we want to go in the future and
how we want to work together in an integrated at the federal, state and
local level.

 

"We also had a significant discussion about the preparations we made for the
passing of Tropical Storm Bonnie last week to the extent that we can refine
our hurricane plans we pretty much were at a what I would call an on or off
switch.  It was either a hurricane or it wasn't.  We didn't quite get a
hurricane but we made preparations to remove equipment and personnel as if
it was a hurricane. I think we all agreed there are going to be gradations
of impact on tropical depressions and storms and there might be some
intermediate or mid-level types of actions we can take in conjunction with
the parishes that would not be as extreme in terms of where the equipment
goes that would allow us to make sure it was safely guarded during the storm
passage but could be brought back to the scene more quickly. We engaged in
very frank and open discussions with Parish Presidents on that including
some of the processes and negotiations and activities that took place over
the last week or so.  And we have committed to go back and take a look at
our storm plans and graduating them in terms of level of severity as it
relates to where we would move the equipment and how we would work with the
local parishes.

 

"The third area was significant, you know the vessels of opportunity.
Obviously as we transition to a point where there is not a threat of a spill
and this is all conditioned on the fact that we will have a successful
static kill and bottom kill of the well the employment of vessels of
opportunity is going to necessarily have to change. That doesn't mean that
there is not going to be work to do but it will be a different type of work
to do and we're going to have to understand how we're going to apply these
vessels.  These vessels are also caught up in the issue of whether or not
the fishing areas are open. They're also caught up in whether or not they're
involved as a vessel of opportunity and if they're not whether or not they
fall into the claims process.  It's a very, very complicated issue.  What we
decided to do was come up with a joint vessel of opportunity employment plan
that would take us through the end of August.  It would overlap decisions
that are forthcoming on either fishing areas being open.

 

"The Gulf Coast claims process being stood up.  So we had to wait to know
how we were going to use vessels of opportunity and employ to all these
other decisions that are being made external with the response or activities
will be brought about - will be conducted.

 

"Those three areas I have Task Admiral Zukunft who is the Unified Area
Commander down here to work with the state and the parish presidents.  We
all committed in the room and that included Governor Jindal and all the
parish presidents to move forward in the next week to attack all those three
areas. Let me just summarize them again because I think they're very
important.  One of them is an agreed upon set of principles and protocols on
how we progress to assess whether or not oil cleanup has been completed.
And that will necessarily ultimately drive resource and organizational
decisions but that would be done with the complete input and collaboration
cooperation with the parishes and the state. Second is greater granularly on
hurricane and storm plans.  So if we have less severe front that moves
through, we know we have a graduated response where we put equipment and how
we evacuate personnel or if we need to evacuate personnel so that's done in
the most efficient way possible. And third, is a program to take a look at
vessels of opportunity, how we want to manage them, how we want to employ
them.  There is an interaction with vessels of opportunity. How we use oil
spill response contractors.  How missions are assigned between those.  And
then in what areas and how we use them. Again we're going to develop a plan
moving forward that will cover us through the month of August. 

 

"All in all it was a very frank open productive meeting.  You know these
parish presidents, nobody held anything back.  We got everything on table I
think we needed to talk about. I thought it was a refreshing conversation.
I look forward to having more of these conversations moving forward because
I thought it was very productive.  Again, I want to thank Governor Jindal
and the parish presidents for their participation this morning."