EnviroEmerg Consulting
Emerging Environmental Issues
EnviroEmerg Consulting focuses on emerging regional, national and international environmental issues primarily related to oil and hazardous material spill risk, prevention, preparedness and response.
EnviroEmerg provides emergency management training and services under the Incident Command System (ICS) with a focus on environmental emergencies related to oil and hazardous material spills in marine and inland environments.
EnviroEmerg specializes in Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Techniques (SCAT) for oil spills in both marine and freshwater environments.
EnviroEmerg is available for exercise design, facilitation, and participation under the ICS. EnviroEmerg is available in Canada and internationally for emergency response to deliver ICS planning, field observation, and SCAT.
Sectors include transportation (vessel, rail, road, pipeline) and industrial (manufacturing, storage). Clients include government, companies, First Nations and non-government organizations. All training and services are to international standards.
Stafford Reid
48 years of experience
in environmental emergency
management
LINKEDIN: https://ca.linkedin.com/pub/stafford-reid/b/160/738
Recipient of the Pacific States/BC Oil Spill Task Force's legacy award presented at the Clean Pacific conference "For outstanding achievements in major vessel casualty planning and response on the coast of British Columbia"
Initiatives
Presentations at Coastal Zone Canada Conference: June 2023
Two presentations were provided at the Coastal Zone Conference held in Victoria on June 2023:
- Recovering Heavy Oil in the Shore Zone by a Coastal Community. (Link: https://tinyurl.com/4tuvrt9b )
- Paradigm Shift in Establishing Coastal Community Response Capacity for a Marine Incident. (Link: https://tinyurl.com/4encwtc9 )
On-line course on Introduction to Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Techniques (SCAT) for Coastal Oil Spills
https://introscatcourse.voomly.com
The international Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Techniques (SCAT) subject can be too complex for students to absorb all of its concept, mission, and benefits, then wade through intermediate and advanced materials about shoreline descriptions, then measurements and treatments of oiled shores. Just a handful stay on top of the subject. To be a full-time SCAT practitioner is a career, not a side task. The best return-for-effort is to focus on those that may be engaged in SCAT to represent their agency, company, or a First Nation (indigenous) while working alongside the career, professional SCAT personnel.
The course objective is to establish a strong foundation on SCAT’s definition, mission, principles, benefits, and other introductory elements. The student can then decide if to take intermediate or advanced training but is now prepared to engage in the SCAT decision-making processes – which are dynamic and complex. The introductory course addressed both social and technical aspects of SCAT delivery. SCAT fosters competency, trust, confidence, transparency, and fairness.
Content applies to temperate, cold and tropical waters and inland freshwater environments. It is designed to build local to national SCAT capacity. The course is to international standards and up-to-date practices.
The course is provided on a purpose-designed website for training that includes: videos, graphics, narrations and transcripts. There are eight modules. Youtube links are provided for an overview of each module. As well complete modules are provided for content review at: https://tinyurl.com/2hs9xxdj to help decide on course purchase. Check out my “landing -page” on Introduction to Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Techniques at: https://introscatcourse.voomly.com
An example of a full module is provided below (approx. 10 minutes). Course modules average about 30 minutes.
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Demostration of Pre-SCAT Data Compilation
In the event of an oil spill, there requires rapid access to SCAT information packaged and formatted for review. Key products are attached to operational assignments or posted in the Environmental Unit, such as shoreline segment and type maps, a shore image for annotation, and a pre-populated Shoreline Oil Summary form. During an emergency, it is not the best time to ferret through folders of unedited drone videos and shore images, difficult-to-read Pre-SCAT field summaries, and track down shoreline segment maps to look for relevant information in a suitable format for distribution. Furthermore, the time between when a Pre-SCAT of a shore was done and when needed for an oil spill can be decades apart -the people who undertook the fieldwork may be gone to another job or position, so they are not available for interpretation.
This pre-SCAT data compilation demonstration tackles these issues to ensure rapid access to relevant information and foster a common operational picture for the pre-SCAT shore. It uses Microsoft PowerPoint, a widely known application that allows users to include videos and images and provide narrations.
This video presentation made from the Microsoft PowerPoint Pre-SCAT is about an hour long – it is a deep dive that provides some educational context behind Pre-SCAT and walks you through a data template for shoreline information gathered. It is relevant for unmanned aerial vehicle (Drone) operators to capture useful videos and extract suitable images for SCAT. View presentaion below. YouTube link is: https://youtu.be/NcfoXKqtcBA To downland the MicroSoft Powerpoint Pre-SCAT data template (with narratives and appendices) Google Drive: https://tinyurl.com/57embxf6
The narrative examines shoreline segment and type charts from British Columbia’s Coastal Resource Information System’s shoreline bio-physical mapping and Environment Climate Change Canada’s national shoreline mapping program.
This presentation on Pre-SCAT compilation is based on a shore drone video provided by Shaun Edgars of the Marine Planning Program, Council of the Haida Nation. All images, written treatment criteria and other Pre-SCAT elements are demonstration mock-ups. Stafford Reid of EnviroEmerg Consulting is solely responsible for the narratives and opinions. Comments can be directed to: EnviroEmerg@gmail.com or (250) 732-5515
Concept for a Shore Zone (SZ) Micro-barge
- 2021 California's Orange County Oil Spill (Pipeline P0057 Incident
- 1969 California's Santa Barba Oil-rig Blowout
Concept for Developing a Container & Cargo Location Buoy
This video walks you through a field deployment test to support the concept of a container and cargo location buoy I designed and built. I refer to it as the CCL Buoy. The CCL Buoy’s purpose is to be manually attached to a floating container or other cargo that has accidentally fallen off a vessel near coastal waters. The buoy tracks the container’s drift and final resting place, even if it sinks to 120 meters. Its components are off-the-shelf, with an overall cost of $400, including a SPOT-Trace Satellite tracker.
A detailed, 30-minute video presentation explains the CCL Buoy’s rationale, operating environment, procedure, individual components, and some creative non-emergency applications. https://youtu.be/RlCPXEKPsuM?si=PkbmetatOgtXBEpA
I am looking for your feedback on the CCL Buoy’s application based on your experiences and insights, such as real-world situations.
Place of Refuge (POR) & Course of Action (COA) Risk-based Decision Support Tool for a Vessel Master Requesting Assistance
It is difficult to make and compare the disposition of a major vessel needing assistance to repair or to stabilize a suitable place of refuge (POR) such as cove, harbour, sheltered waters or another course of action (COA) such as repair in place, intentional beaching, or go further offshore.
This Place of Refuge (POR) & Course of Action (COA) Risk-based Decision Support Tool (below) provides a level of rigour that helps to quickly and methodically review and capture key vessel management and impact mitigation considerations for each POR or COA to determine the best overall recommendation. The latter is based on the lowest consequences and risks to the vessel, crew, responders, public, ecology, culture and commerce of a coastal area under threat.
The tool is done in a collaborative, equitable and transparent way such as with federal and provincial agencies, ship owner and First Nation (indigenous). It uses situational information, checklists, and ecological/cultural/commercial information gathered before and during a marine vessel incident. The goal is not to make the marine vessel incident worse by recognizing the relative consequences and risks to coastal resources and their users. This includes the practical application of mitigation measures to reduce risk
Example Deliverables
Appeared as a panel witnesses and provide a submission for the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans study of Marine Cargo Container Spills
Developed and delivered webinar training courses for Coastal First Nation of the Central and North Coast of British Columbia:
- Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Techniques (SCAT) (3-days; 3 hrs each)
- Basic Safety for Coastal Marine Oil Spill (1 day; 3 hrs)
- Aerial Observations for Coastal Spills from a Vessel (2 days: 3 hrs each)
Undertook First Nation community workshops to identify Areas of Concern for marine oil spill response and participated in field surveys to develop Geographic Response Strategies.
Provided technical services to Cowichan Tribes on reconsideration of the Trans-mountain Pipeline Expansion with technical submission to the National Energy Board on fate, behaviour and operational challenges related to a dilbit spill.
Delivered ICS 100 (orientation), 200 (basic)and 300 (intermediate) training sponsored by the Council of the Haida Nation.
Up-dated BC Ministry of Environment's three spill response plans for marine and inland oil spills, and hazardous material incidents (original author in 1991-93), prepared an Incident Management Handbook, and twenty two Position Task Books for Incident Management Team positions and technical specialists.