Swinomish Oil Spill Preparedness Project

Jon Boe

Swinomish Environmental Management Specialist

Swinomish Indian Tribal Community

La Conner, Washington

Where is the Swinomish Reservation?

Why should the Swinomish beconcerned with oil spills on or near their Reservation?

27 Miles of shoreline

2900 Acres Intertidal area

Several hundred acres of estuarinesalmonid rearing habitat

Fish and shellfish consumptionrates many times that of thegeneral population

2 Large refineries on March Point

Railroad crossingReservation intertidal area

3 major petroleum pipelines crossing the Reservation andthe Swinomish Channel

Commercial and recreationalshipping and boating traffic around the circumference ofthe Reservation

Project Scope and Objectives

• During a regional spill scenario, provide trained personnel to assess and provide timely and accurate information to the incident commander on affected habitat on the Reservation, in order to facilitate effective response actions

• Train and provide personnel to respond to certain spill scenarios using local resources

Current GRP locationsOn the SwinomishReservation

Additional high quality fish and wildlife habitat on theReservationvulnerable to oil spillcontamination

How we plan to accomplish this project

• Conduct Reservation habitat assessments on potentially vulnerable areas

• Make recommendations to update the Geographical Response Plans that affect the Reservation

• Determine what we can do locally and develop procedures to accomplish that

• Develop effective spill response command, control and communication procedures

• Recruit, organize, equip and train volunteers to accomplish project objectives

• Conduct drills to verify capability• Maintain the capability within the Brownfields Tribal

Response Program

Swinomish Habitat

Pocket Estuary Restoration Areas

Swinomish agricultural land Estuarine Restoration Areas

Self-regulating tidegates

Estuarine habitat inside theSwinomish Channel sea dike

Self-regulating tidegate

Questions?