NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
INCIDENTS
Gulf Islands NS
IMT Activated To Deal With Gulf Oil Spill
On the evening of Saturday, April 24th, the park activated a Type 3 incident management team to deal with potential impacts from the oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico that followed the recent sinking of the oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. The team is working closely with Southeast Region and WASO on the NPS response. The following actions had been completed as of yesterday morning:
The IMT has an agency liaison in place at the Unified Command Center in Houma. That liaison is Rick Clark, chief of the park's Division of Science and Resource Management.
An environmental protection specialist from IMRO, Chris Reels, has been ordered as a resource advisor. Reels has extensive experience in the private sector in the area of oil spill response. He has arrived at the Unified Command Center ICP and will assist the park team with planning.
Contact has been established with key USCG officials in Mobile who will coordinate spill response actions when/if oil threatens the northern Gulf coast. All areas of the park are located within this sector. Experienced park staff have been identified who will join the interagency planning team when activated.
Contacts have been established with key personnel within the US Fish & Wildlife Service positioned in Houma and near Mobile.
Park science and resource management staff have begun work on preparing updated response planning documents.
A plan has been prepared for conducting a baseline resource assessment that should be completed by later today.
As of yesterday, the oil plume was several hundred square miles in size and approximately 60 miles from park waters. Projections showing the possible spread of the oil slick 72 hours out vary significantly from model run to model run, but no landfall is expected before late in the week. The wellhead continues to discharge an estimated 1,000 barrels of oil a day. The worst case scenario would be a full blowout of the wellhead, which could result in discharge amounts that would pale in comparison to these numbers. Efforts to secure the wellhead via ROV's continue to fail; Plan B is the establishment of a relief well, but that is expected to take an estimated 90 days. Incident managers expect to employ a new technology designed to capture large quantities of leaking oil closer to the discharge point, but the technique has never before been attempted in deep water. USCG Sector Mobile has staged large quantities of spill response materials and identified contractor zones should oil threaten the north central Gulf coast. [Clay Jordan, IC, Deepwater Horizon Incident]
Prince William FP
Rangers Make Drug And Warrant Arrests
Protection rangers were involved in a series of incidents leading to the arrest of four people over the course of two days in mid-April:
An on-duty ranger made a routine permit inspection visitor contact at Oakridge Campground on Friday, April 16th, and interrupted a man in the process of injecting himself with a suspected heroin filled syringe. The contact resulted in the man's arrest. Following the arrest, approximately four grams of heroin, two grams of marijuana, a crack pipe and unauthorized prescription medication were seized.
On Saturday, April 17th, an on-duty ranger was first on the scene at a serious motorcycle accident on Joplin Road bordering park property. While the ranger was assisting with traffic direction, an oncoming motorist failed to stop and drove past the ranger and his patrol car, nearly striking the ranger. The driver stopped after a short distance due to a fire truck blocking the roadway. When county police and the ranger made contact with the occupants, they opened the vehicle's doors and a “cloud of smoke” issued from within. The driver of the vehicle was arrested by the county police and charged with driving under the influence of a narcotic, possession of marijuana and reckless operation. The passenger was also arrested on a charge of possession of marijuana.
Later that afternoon, the same ranger responded to a call regarding two “pocket bikes” (small motorcycles) being operated on and off park road surfaces within the Pine Grove Picnic Area. As the ranger was arriving, the “pocket bikes” quickly exited the park into oncoming traffic. Two lanes of traffic were affected and vehicles had to take avoidance maneuvers to prevent collisions. The ranger was able to get the “pocket bikes” to stop a short distance later. One of the two adult drivers was belligerent and was unable to produce positive identification. County police were summoned for assistance. The man continued to be belligerent and refused to provide positive information, leading to his arrest by the ranger. Several violation notices were issued to the other man, who had identification. Further investigation revealed that the belligerent man had been recently released from prison and was currently on parole for identity theft and credit card fraud. The man also had non-extraditable warrants from another state out against him. The judge held the man without bail, pending a revocation of parole hearing.
All four of the arrested suspects now have May court dates. [Tracy Ballesteros]
OTHER NEWS
The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:
WASO Public Affairs - Ranger Jeff Wolin premiered a Junior Ranger song at a National Park Week event on the National Mall last weekend. Links are provided for an audio version of "Explore, Learn, and Protect" and a music video from Earth Day of his song "Humps, Hooves, and Horns."
Learning and Development - The current version of DOI LEARN will be shut down at close of business this Thursday, April 29th, as the first step in upgrading to the next version. The system will remain offline until May 6th.
Alaska Region - The Denali NP road crew has been awarded the 2009 Alaska Region Group Safety Award for their continued efforts towards safety excellence. Photo.
To see these and other stories posted on InsideNPS (or NPS Digest, its public version), click on one or the other of the following links (please note that not all stories in the former appear in the latter):
NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index
Non-NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/
NPS serious incident submission standards can be found at the following web site: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/notify" http://inside.nps.gov/notify
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Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, with the support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).
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