[StBernard] Formal written testimony offered by St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro Wednesday before the US House Committee on Homeland Security

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro testifies on Capitol Hill
Wednesday

Taffaro invited to testify with five others for the House Homeland Security
Hearing on Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill 

PRESIDENT TAFFARO’S OFFICIAL TESTIMONY INCLUDED BELOW 

 

St. Bernard Parish President Craig P. Taffaro, Jr., testified for two hours
in Washington DC on Wednesday, September 22, in front of the House Committee
on Homeland Security on the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership in
disaster planning and response related to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. 

 

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security,
convened the full committee hearing, and Congressman Anh "Joseph" Cao,
Deputy Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, served as
co-chair for the committee hearing. Cao served as Ranking Member and
Co-Chairman in the absence of Rep. Peter King. Actor Kevin Costner testified
on the same panel as Taffaro. Their testimony lasted two hours. Currently,
the committee is hearing from the federal officials.  

 

The hearing, entitled “DHS Planning and Response: Preliminary Lessons from
Deepwater Horizon,” is an opportunity to examine the Department’s
preparation and authority in carrying out its incident management role as
well as its responsibilities under the National Response Framework as the
coordinator for all agencies involved in a Federal response effort. The
hearing is in 311 Cannon House Office Building and began at 9 a.m., Eastern
Time.


Witnesses on the first panel:

*	Kevin Costner, Private Citizen 
*	Craig Paul Taffaro, Jr., President, St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana 

Witnesses on the second panel: 

*	Richard M. Chávez, Acting Director, Operations Coordination and
Planning, Department of Homeland Security 
*	RADM. Peter Neffenger, Deputy National Incident Commander, Deepwater
Horizon Oil Spill Response 
*	Richard L. Skinner, Inspector General, Department of Homeland
Security 
*	William O. Jenkins, Jr., Director, Homeland Security and Justice
Issues, Government Accountability Office 


To watch the testimony live, via the Internet, visit
http://homeland.house.gov/index.asp, and click on the Webcast button on the
left side of the page during the hearing. For more information about the
Growth and Recovery of St. Bernard Parish, visit www.sbpg.net.  

 

###

 

 

Testimony offered by 

Craig Paul Taffaro, Jr.

St. Bernard Parish President

St. Bernard Parish Government

 

September 22, 2010

 

DHS Planning and Response: 

Preliminary Lessons

 from Deepwater Horizon

 

House Committee on Homeland Security

U.S. House of Representatives

 

The following testimony is offered at day 152 following the Deepwater
Horizon Oil Spill crisis.  The testimony offered herewith is done so from a
perspective of the local community of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana as both
an individual parish which experienced significant impact from the BP Oil
Spill as well as a member of the Louisiana coastal parishes working as a
coastal group.  The statements and comments contained herein are limited to
the scope of information that was requested relative to perceived areas
which are in need of improvement and/or further procedural or operational
adjustment.  While the request to identify this information guided this
submission, it should be noted that in many aspects of branch functioning,
the St. Bernard Branch was noted as implementing response “best practices”
and upon evaluation of the branch operations, it was revealed that several
functions were actually setting region standards.

 

PRELIMINARY LESSONS LEARNED

 

Of significant importance was the clear indication that the response to the
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill crisis started from a position of playing catch
up.  From the breaking notice that an explosion had occurred to even today,
the information flow to the local branch has been wrought with
inconsistency, fragmented messaging, and stove-piped communication patterns.
Both the United States Coast Guard and BP were at a distinct disadvantage in
the Gulf Coast Region of Louisiana as the Louisiana Governor’s Office of
Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness together with the individual
parishes have been operating at a higher state of readiness than most other
local municipalities throughout the United States.  This increased level of
readiness to respond comes with being engaged on a daily basis in the long
term recovery process and annual preparation activities following the
overwhelming experiences of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike.
Additionally, the region has experienced the largest domestic land oil spill
in United States history with the Murphy Oil, USA spill in conjunction with
Hurricane Katrina and an additional Mississippi River Oil Spill in 2009
which impacted the St. Bernard community as well.  When totaled, St. Bernard
Parish has been directly engaged in five Type 1 disasters in the last five
years, a statistic that has produced a rather robust appetite for response
management.

 

In retrospect, the information flow relative to the Deepwater Horizon Oil
Spill crisis had similar markings as several of the other disasters
experienced in the St. Bernard community, namely poor factual information
about the event, a downplaying of available resources and the mechanism to
obtain such, and a lack of local engagement to the response coordination.
Complicating this event was the differing authorizing legislation for
Louisiana verses the other coastal states involved.  Louisiana law
specifically states and grants emergency powers to the local authorities
(primarily the parish president/mayor) during times of declared disasters.
This construct seemed to create a bureaucratic obstacle that has plagued the
coordination of the response effort throughout.  Instead of embracing the
local authorities’ involvement and resource capacity, local authority was
met with resistance, exclusion, and power struggles.  This decision, whether
contemplated or not, resulted in adversarial relationships between the local
agencies, the state and Governor’s office, and BP and the United States
Coast Guard.  The immediate perception and experience of the local parishes
was that the very agency, the United States Coast Guard, that was to have
ultimate authority according to OPA 90 and the Clean Water Act legislation
had partnered with the responsible party, BP, in a protective role rather
than an enforcement role to oversee that every resource and activity needed
was brought to bear.  While the description that the Oil Spill was analogous
to fighting a war was pronounced, the soldiers in the field and on the
battle grounds were met with consistent resistance of resource supply,
restrictive procurement processes, and a lack of follow through.  While
operational discussions and decisions were being made in Houma, LA, some 90
minutes or more from most of the impacted areas, input and coordination from
the local communities was ignored in many cases and patronizingly accepted
in others.  The responsible party operations lead either interpreted
directives or was instructed to actually hide information from the local
incident command personnel by covering up maps, information, and assignments
when local personnel entered the separate command post established by BP.
For the first six weeks of the response, despite an approved joint command
and incident command team being built, a separate and uncoordinated effort
was the norm.  A build up of OSRO (Oil Spill Response Organizations) assets
was clearly underway and the request to use the local commercial fishing
fleet, the very industry that was under siege in this “war” had to fight
their way into the response.  BP created a Vessel of Opportunity program
which was mismanaged in fulfilling the goal of putting local vessels in
local waters to assist in the local response efforts.  St. Bernard Parish
established a modified version of the Vessels of Opportunity program, that
to BP’s credit was funded.  The local vessels were eventually placed into a
rotation and, side by side with the OSRO vessels, were utilized in the
response effort and given daily assignments in boom deployment, oil
detection and recovery, support activity, rapid assessment, etc.  The local
fleet proved to be a critical asset in the mission response sharing
invaluable information of tidal activity, strength of currents, and marsh
detection and impact.

 

Very early on in the response, St. Bernard Parish requested BP to allow for
and support the establishment of a local environmental planning and
assessment team.  This was disallowed by BP only to be told some three and a
half months later by a visiting Coast Guard authority that St. Bernard
should have been involved in environmental assessment from the start.

 

This lack of continuity was addressed by the local community by establishing
a deputy or lead in all ICS sections, which was also attempted to be undone
at various times throughout the rotation of BP and USCG personnel.  As
branch directors, deputies, PPLOs, and other subject matter experts from the
USCG and/or BP contractors rotated into the St. Bernard Parish Branch a
constant learning curve was experienced and a re-tooling of operational,
logistical, planning, and resourcing activities became the norm.  While
individuals who were deployed to St. Bernard varied in his/her level of oil
spill expertise, the discontinuity between those leaving and those arriving
continues, even today, to be an issue.

 

Simply balancing the rather contentious dynamics that have existed in many
local branches became a major endeavor as relationships that were
established and boundaries understood were changed with the starting of each
new relationship.  Local frustrations certainly added to the contentious
atmosphere between local leadership and the USCG and BP.  The issuing of
Executive Orders, which created power struggles over resources, hurricane
planning, and local authority tainted the trust level in the joint command
structure and often left the local parish on the outside of the BP/USCG
dyad.

 

This contention often was the result of an Incident Command in Houma not
recognizing the operational input and planning of the local branch in St.
Bernard Parish.  Despite the use of local experts, BP personnel, and
deployed USCG personnel, and despite Branch Action Plans being submitted and
no objection being communicated activities and implemented assignments were
often criticized and rejected after the fact.  Most disturbing in this
pattern of retroactively rejecting sound operational practices was and is
BP’s financial hostage program.  After services have been rendered,
resources used and expended, equipment activated, and often after successful
completion of tasks, BP has undertaken a program to disallow costs, reject
approval of previously approved processes, and financially strangle the
local small businesses which have acted in good faith efforts in the oil
spill response, many times financing the activity themselves.  It is not
lost in this discourse the fact that local companies and brokers were
positioning themselves to make a profit within this structure, but agreed
upon transactions should be supported, not cancelled.  Modifications of
agreements, a review of reasonable costs, and the elimination of unneeded
resources have been and continue to be supported by the local branch.
However, leaving unpaid vendors to scramble to stay afloat with millions of
dollars in unpaid bills because BP has changed their rules multiple times
over the course of five months is unacceptable.    Underscoring the
contentions that existed as BP attempted to paint the St. Bernard Branch as
a rogue operation and that their personnel needed to be protected from
intimidation and influence from the local leadership, BP personnel who have
multi-million dollar signature authority in their non-oil spill positions
were reduced to having absolutely no authority at all.  This action
significantly stifled the ability of the branch to operate efficiently.

 

During these operational disputes, the USCG chose to sit on the fence,
claiming that business contractual arrangements and engaging in directives
on such topics were outside of their legal purview and authority.  This
dynamic only strengthened the uncontested authority of BP as the perpetrator
of the disaster and the responsible party which was able to usurp the 51%
authority of the USCG.  If BP disagreed with a decision, they simply would
choose not to pay, in essence daring the USCG to use its ability to reach
into the oil spill fund.  Because most of these decisions were reflective of
a disconnect between the multiple layers of the operational ICS structure,
enough doubt was cast or enough time had passed that an argument be made
that BP had the right to use their discretion in paying for services,
personnel, or equipment which had already been engaged and used.  If the
immediate operational need had ceased by the time the dispute was brought to
awareness, the USCG simply bowed out of the dispute, attributing it to a
business/contractual issue.

 

In the immediate past, there was a constant discussion over the appropriate
level of demobilization and the pace of such as it related to an agreed to
and established Transition Plan.  Every oil spill has a response phase and a
recovery phase.  Although these vary from incident to incident, the basic
frame work exists.  Within the communication of the well being capped, it
was clearly the start of a different focus by BP with the USCG at least
providing complicit support, if not active leadership in this shift.
Requests immediately became rejected or denied at a higher rate, payments to
vendors began to slow, sightings became more and more unrecoverable, and the
constant debate over the need for continued operations commenced.  While the
discussion relative to these topics is appropriate throughout the response,
arbitrary decisions to demobilize or attempt to demobilize basic features of
the response began in earnest.  In the midst of the activation of the
Transition Plan, it was an apparent expectation that each branch would lean
forward in the Transition Plan, despite certain triggers to do so not being
reached.

 

This push was indicative of a common belief that the incident was all but
over and that the focus on long term recovery was the order of the day.  The
belief of such seemed to undermine the enthusiastic support to find and
treat oil impacted areas.  Sightings were now limited on the water surface,
but signs of the water bottoms being impacted and the marsh literally
washing away were largely ignored and referred to the NRDA (Natural
Resources Damage Assessment) process.  The gap between response and NRDA has
proven to be a difficult crevasse to cross.  The USCG does not recognize
their role in the NRDA process and has a difficult time asserting itself as
an authority to go beyond established STRs (Shoreline Treatment
Recommendations).  This gap in responsible party identification has resulted
in acres of loss marsh land that is so critical to the coastal protection of
St. Bernard Parish and the surrounding areas, including the City of New
Orleans.  Further intervention is necessary in addition to the
identification of the critically damaged sights, but funding to accomplish
this task has been rejected.

 

It is noted that the interaction between the St. Bernard Branch and the
Department of Homeland Security was non-existent.  Parish leadership did
have the opportunity to communicate with an assigned PPLO (Parish President
Liaison Officer) who did participate in a daily conference call with the
secretary’s staff.  The Department of the Interior was referenced throughout
the response, primarily in conjunction with the focus on the barrier islands
of the coast of Louisiana.  Interestingly enough, these are the same islands
that had been neglected for some 25 years and received intense “protection”
in the objection to build berms to assist in capturing oil.  The Department
representative communicated directly with BP representatives regularly but
as the Parish President, I did not have one conversation with any DOI
representative.  This exterior input to the Branch Action Plan was responded
to without question and created confusion in who was actually coordinating
the response.   This type of disjointed influence was not limited to the DOI
but it also included other agencies which often operated without
coordination or notification to the local Branch.  NOAA, FDA, EPA, and
specialized response teams within the incident command would regularly
engage in the St. Bernard Area of Operation unbeknownst to the local
command.  This was indicative of the disconnected response efforts at all
levels.  There were literally multiple layers of responders who never
coordinated with each other, nor shared data of their respective activities.

 

What worked for one community may or may not have worked in another
community.  The challenge to share information operationally, logistically,
or resource assignment was never conquered.  Having the ability to use best
practices seemed to be lost as the resources reviewing information from
branch to branch often did not return calls for clarification or direction.
Branch to branch discussion was more apt to occur and often did, but did not
result in the adoption of similar interventions, even when sought to do so. 

 

COMMUNICATION

 

The flow of information was poor.  The information presented by BP in print
and broadcast media often erupted into episodes of frustration and disbelief
as the disconnect between the reality of a local experience and the stated
information was clearly displayed.  The local chastisement of the response
seemed to serve as an obstacle to adjustment as the focus continued to be on
correcting media releases rather than hearing and adjusting the problem that
may have been referenced.  It became evident that a negative response in the
media would be met with a slowed response and additional power struggles.

 

The local branch was rarely forwarded information that was collected and
used in decision making by higher authorities.  This continued to create a
sense of distrust as the experience at the local level was often
inconsistent with the information released by higher authorities.  Requests
to integrate the various scientific communities with local authorities and
the local fleet who held significant historical knowledge was met with
dismissal and a lack of interest.  This resulted in the scientific community
losing critical credibility within the local populations that needed to buy
in for the overall success of this response.  NOAA couched their information
so as not to contraindicate the decision to follow the methods and approach
of dispersant but frequently offered limited valid scientific specifics to
this spill and its related activities.  Instead of revealing that there
would be significant amounts of follow up testing that would be required to
document the effects of the approach used, the information was released in
manners to suggest conclusions that could not be supported.  Predicting
conclusions of future and untested protocols only exacerbated the lack of
trust between the scientific community and the commercial fishing industry.

 

Understanding that BP has a business need to promote a positive image of the
company and the shareholders of the company do enter into the equation of
the response, marketing efforts to manage expectations must be a focus of
the communication strategy.  Again, pushing out images that are inconsistent
with the actual experience of the local community only serves to widen the
disconnect between the responsible party and those affected by the incident.

 

Overall, there were significant positives interspersed within the response.
As mentioned, the use of the local commercial fishing fleet was a major
positive impact for the St. Bernard Parish community.  

 

While now outside the direct control of BP, the claims process has created
unnecessary anxiety and distress within the community that was most directly
impacted by the spill itself.  The members of the commercial fishing fleet
find themselves being matriculated out of the response activities with no
market to fish their respective products and little assurances that their
future is any more promising than their last five months.  While there is no
argument that there is some product to be harvested, the ongoing need for
longer term and more comprehensive testing to promote the industry continues
to be unmet.  Furthermore, incentive programs and shared liability programs
for the product that is caught have not gotten any traction.  Questions of
BP using earned money by the fishing community to reduce damages continues
to be a point of contention, leaving the local community with the belief
that they were duped into working for the enemy and cleaned up the mess for
free.

 

 

It is most important to recognize that the federal legislation as
interpreted and applied leaves the very community and citizenry impacted by
such an event to be continuously victimized throughout the response by
allowing the “responsible party” the gatekeeper of funds for the response
effort.  Despite a 51% role, the USCG continuously referenced legal
limitations that forced their command to stop short of implementing
operational decisions that would have been beneficial but could not identify
a clear authority to do so.

 

At some point, responsible party has to be redefined to mean financially
responsible and be prohibited from having operational input to the response
effort.  This change in application of the existing legislation would allow
the USCG to partner with the local community and/or state in which an
incident occurs instead of partnering as an operational partner with the
responsible partner.  The current situation is likened to putting a rape
victim in counseling with her perpetrator.

 

It must be recognized that any incident will create competing interests by
the parties involved in the response.  The responsible party will obviously
have a much different commitment than the objective enforcer of the spill
response.  Additionally, in this situation, the USCG in its role as the
Federal On-Scene Coordinator must have the latitude to act and enforce
without financial repercussions.  Current legislation allows for
reimbursement by the USCG and local municipalities for their expenses in the
response.  When the responsible party is at the decision making table with
financial veto authority it sets up a significant potential for a conflict
of interest.  This is further underscored in our current situation both on
the national level with recent cuts to the USCG and at a time when local
revenues are struggling to keep pace with service needs and operational
expenses.

 

SUMMARY

 

In delivering a concise review of the response to date to the Deepwater
Horizon Oil Spill, the following summary points are offered.

 

·       Recognize that current legislation generally is crafted based on the
most recent experiences.  Reactive legislation without expansive application
of industry experiences and in-depth analysis of real “worse case” scenarios
is negligent.  Just as we learned in the Hurricane Katrina response, there
must be legislation that allows for flexible response decisions in the face
of disasters which transcend the boundaries of existing legislation.

·       Recognize that a basic tenet of disaster response is that disasters
are local.  To exclude local engagement curtails critical information and
hinders the process of an expedited response.  While following a National
Contingency Plan may set the specific command parameters and structure, if
implemented without local buy-in initiates significant but unnecessary power
struggles, stifles valuable information exchange, breeds distrust, and
ultimately interferes with the effective completion of the mission at hand
via distractions which focus on personality and authority dynamics.

·       Establish a national downstream logistics program which accounts for
real time resource availability and a pre-event awareness of potential
shortfalls and pre-planned alternatives to address such shortfalls.

·       Redefine the role of “responsible party” from the manager of the
disaster to the required financier of reasonable response efforts.  Require
the participation of all operating oil and gas companies to contribute to
the oil spill fund at a level that allows the ability to cover costs of a
response.  In times of a specific incident, create a pre-established
evaluation team to provide a cost estimate for the response associated with
a specific disaster and require those funds to be deposited into escrow to
be drawn on for response costs.  Oversight of the escrow should be
administered by an independent agency that will account for cost
reasonableness and response vendor payments.

·       Eliminate the operational practice that isolates data used for
decision making at all levels of the response from the local branches and
establish a network of information sharing and concurrence that integrates
actual “on the ground” experiences with scientific theory and data
interpretation.

 

In recognition of the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill crisis,
the after action reporting process will be ongoing for some years to come.
Reviewing processes along the way is certainly a necessary step in improving
efficiency.

 

There must be a recognition that the driving force in the current structure
is funding.  From a litigious minded management approach to a legislatively
restricted enforcement capability, the common denominator in the decision
making model has been who pays for what.  As long as this dichotomous
structure is in place the actual response and focus to cleaning any
environmental crisis governed by OPA 90 and the Clean Water Act will twist
upon itself.  The establishment of partnerships is extremely important, but
there must be a clear and decisive understanding of who has the ability to
turn processes on and who has the ability to shut operations down.  As long
as the check book governs the decision makers, there will be a less than
optimum response achieved.

 

Thank you for your attention and interest in this matter.  It certainly has
been an incident that no one has enjoyed.  The responsibility of all
involved is to identify how to improve the system in the next disaster.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

Craig P. Taffaro, Jr.

St. Bernard Parish President