Tabletop exercises are an annual event that all of us in this industry experience either directly or indirectly. A successful exercise takes coordination from players, facilitators and evaluators and begins well before the day of the exercise. Many hours of planning and preparation go into tabletop design and implementation and the cost in staff time and dollars is a line item on every facility’s budget. Facilities dedicate thousands of dollars in planning and implementing an exercise.
Clean Rivers Cooperative Staff are experienced and qualified to assist in planning exercises for years one and two. As a Member of the Cooperative, facilities have access to the Cooperative Operations Facility at a discounted rate and receive support and planning of their exercises free of charge as a value of their membership. Recently Cooperative Member, Columbia Pacific Bio-Refinery (CPBR) in Clatskanie, Oregon took advantage of this service for its 2nd year tabletop exercise that took place on August 23rd.
Cooperative General Manager, Curtis Cannizzaro and Administrative Coordinator, Polly Hyke worked with CPBR Plant Manager, Doug Lenz and Safety/Operation Support Manager, John Blodgett to plan and implement the exercise that took place in an onsite/remote hybrid environment at the Clean Rivers Cooperative Operations Facility in Portland, OR, onsite at the CPBR facility and remotely for those who joined from distant locations. On the benefit of utilizing the Clean River Operations Facility for his exercise, Doug Lenz said ” The facility is centrally located to the regulatory and OSRO personnel participating and is very capable to support all your companies’ technical needs.” Microsoft Teams was utilized to connect players remotely to the Command Post. The use of MS Teams began to be widely used during the COVID 19 pandemic. The platform enabled our industry to connect while still maintaining quarantine and quickly became an essential way to connect with remote participants even in the post pandemic world. Just like a physical command post, the MS Teams environment is set up with individual workspaces (called Channels) for each ICS section and a General channel for all to convene through. Clean Rivers and CPBR, with input from the USCG and Oregon DEQ developed the exercise scenario, objectives, Master Scenario Events List (MSEL), and Situation Manual. “The Clean Rivers personnel are highly skilled in the ICS exercise environment and are recognized as the local experts. The team makes the exercise an effective experience from planning, staffing, and execution of the drill. Their experience and knowledge provided useful training for our Spill Response team.” Said Lenz. “My staff all commented on the quality experience that the Clean Rivers personnel provided and the regulators comment that the facility works very well for hosting the exercise drills.”
The exercise scenario involved an instantaneous release of 289 barrels of diesel fuel into the Columbia River, started from the ICS 201 briefing and played through to the Tactics meeting at the end of the exercise. Six different organizations participated in the event. When asked about his future exercise plans, Lenz replied “It is an easy decision to host all of our tabletop exercises [at the Cooperative Facility] especially in the hybrid format that has become common.”
Clean Rivers Operations Training Facility is available to host more than drills and exercises. Members have utilized the facility for private company training events and in September 2022 hosted a two day NWACP Wildlife Communications training. Coming up on August 31st the Cooperative Facility will be hosting a hybrid in person/remote webinar “The Tactics Conference” facilitated by Dan Smiley of Gallagher Marine Services/WSMC.
If you are interested in utilizing The cooperative training facility or would like more information about exercise planning and facilitation, please visit our training facility webpage by clicking here.
