Draft final

BOX 11 IS ONGOING DISPERSANT USE JUSTIFIED AND SAFE?

All of the following must apply to justify ongoing dispersant use:

• 
  The spill can be chemically dispersed with an approved and available agent (see Box 2 and Attachment VII);Oceanographic and weather conditions are potentially conducive to dispersant use (see Box 3 and DISPERSANT ASSESSMENT WORKSHEET);
  

• 
  The spilled oil is at least 3 nautical miles from shore, not within the boundaries of a National Marine Sanctuary (see Box 4), and not within 3 miles of the CA/Mexico border, not being used at the surface for more than 5 days, and not a subsea use:
  
• 
  The dispersant will have a net environmental benefit (see Box 7a);
  
• 
  The dispersant can be applied safely (see Box 5), with suitable weather (Box 5a) and available resources (Box 5b);
  
• 
  There are indications the dispersant continues to be effective (see Box 9).
  

Decision: Continue with dispersant use?

• 
  Yes Go to Box 11
  
• 
  No Go to Box 12
  

Make a note of the decision on Dispersant Use Checklist (Page I-9)
There will be a point when dispersantS ARE no longer effective.



References Cited
Etkin, Dagmar Schmidt. 1999. Oil Spill Dispersants: From Technology to Policy. Cutter Information Corp, Arlington, MA.
ExxonMobil Dispersant Guidelines. 2000. ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company.
Ross, S.L. 2002. Assessment of the Use of Dispersants on Oil Spills in California Marine Waters. S.L. Ross Environmental Research, Ltd. for Minerals Management Service, Herndon, VA.
State of California, Office of Emergency Services. 2001. Risk communication Guide for State and Local Agencies. 17pp.
Stevens, Leigh. 2000. Oil Spill Dispersants: Guidelines for use in New Zealand. Prepared for Maritime Safety Authority of New Zealand.
Wildlife Response Plan Appendices of the California Area Contingency Plan. Version 2, October 2003.

This page provided for spacing purposes.

ENCLOSURE 4920b
IN-SITU BURN CASE-BY-CASE RRT APPROVAL REQUIRED ZONE
OVERVIEW AND CASE-BY-CASE DECISION PROCESS

Background
There are presently two commonly recognized approaches to remove significant quantities of spilled petroleum from marine surface waters. The most common technique involves mechanical skimming devices which, for large spills, typically remove less than 20% of the spilled petroleum (National Research Council, 1989). The second and more controversial method is the use of chemical agents (e.g., dispersants) to disperse oil into the water column. The effectiveness of chemical dispersants has been reported to range from zero to 100% depending on the type of petroleum spilled, the dispersant used, and the approach employed to estimate effectiveness (National Research Council, 1989).
Burning has distinct advantages over other oil spill countermeasures. It offers the potential to rapidly convert large quantities of oil into its primary combustion products with a small percentage of other unburned and residue byproducts (Evans et al., 1992). This technique could be the most effective of all in dealing with a large spill at sea and in removing large quantities of oil from the water environment before it comes ashore (S.L. Ross Environmental, 1990). Until recently, this response technology has not been regularly used, due largely to the lack of understanding of the combustion products and the principles governing the combustibility of oil-on-water (Evans et al., 1992) as well as the lack of the equipment necessary to carry out a burn within the window of opportunity. Much of the renewed interest in in-situ burning has resulted from years of study of both the dynamics of burning oil on the water and the combustion products produced during an in-situ burn.
In-situ burning removes the surface oil by driving much of it into the atmosphere in the form of combustion gases and soot. As such, in-situ burning reduces the environmental threat and impacts posed by on-water spills but only at the cost of increasing the potential threat posed by the airborne plume. In-situ burning, however, does have the potential to accelerate cleanup of spilled petroleum on the surface of the water and at the same time reduce the risk of petroleum-related impacts on environmentally sensitive areas. In the case of California, environmentally sensitive areas include the productive intertidal regions, tidal inlets, tidal marshes and other wetland areas of the coastal islands and mainland, and the surface waters where endangered marine mammals and large concentrations of sea birds might exist. The problem for decision makers is to compare the effects of burning versus not burning and choose the option that provides the greatest net benefit to the environment, without causing undue public health impacts. Every oil spill situation is unique. The weather and sea state conditions that are most favorable for mechanical cleanup (calm winds and sea state) are not favorable for dispersants. However, dispersants might be the best response option in remote off-coast areas with choppy seas. Although limited by the need to first contain the oil, in-situ burning might be the best option in areas where it is imperative to quickly remove large quantities of oil to protect on-water resources, such as within the sea otter range or the Farallon Islands. It is important that all response options be available for use at the time of a spill so that the best and most appropriate response can be used.
Regional Philosophy
The primary object of oil spill abatement and cleanup is to reduce the adverse effect of spilled oil on the environment. Physical removal and subsequent disposal or recycling/re-use is the preferred method. However, mechanical recovery may be limited by equipment capability, weather and sea state, storage and disposal problems, and spill magnitude. Use of in-situ burning may be considered by the FOSC when the preferred recovery techniques are inadequate and in-situ burning will lessen the environmental impacts of the spill.
Authority
The National Contingency Plan, Section 300.910 authorizes the FOSC, with the concurrence of the EPA representative to the RRT and, as appropriate, the concurrence of the State representative to the RRT with jurisdiction over navigable waters threatened by the release of discharge (of oil) and in consultation with the DOC and DOI natural resource trustees, when practicable, to authorize the use of in-situ burning on a case-by-case basis. The Commandant of the USCG has predesignated the USCG Captains of the Port under his jurisdiction as Federal On-Scene Coordinators for oil spills, and has delegated authority and responsibility for compliance with Section 311 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to them. The USEPA has been delegated authority under Subpart J of the NCP to authorize use of in-situ burning for control of oil spills.
California Government Code Section 8670.7(f) delineates the Administrator of the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, Department of Fish and Wildlife as having the State authority over the use of all response methods, including, but not limited to, in-situ burning. The Governor of the State of California has delegated state representation on the RRT to the Administrator of the OSPR.
Annual Review
It will be the charge of the RRT ART Working Group to annually review the use of in-situ burning and report its findings to the RRT at a scheduled meeting. The group will be responsible for the administrative upkeep of the contact list as well as insuring that the plan is updated to reflect any changes in regional polices (including those of Region X, the state of Oregon and Mexico), and technological advances.
Case-by-Case AREAs
Case-by-case areas are defined as those areas not designated within the preapproval zones. This includes all marine waters within 35 miles off the California coast as well as areas of special jurisdiction as detailed above. The FOSC will obtain approval from the EPA representative to the RRT and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) representing the State of California. Whenever fish or wildlife resources may be affected, the EPA and State representative to the RRT may consult with the DOI and DOC natural resource trustee agencies.
Case-by-Case Process
If in-situ burning is to be successful it must typically be undertaken within a small window of opportunity following the release of oil, which often can be measured in hours. In order to accomplish such a task, the FOSC/UC must have a mechanism at its disposal to expedite the in-situ burning use decision. An accelerated review process will be conducted by the Planning Section (generally, the ART Technical Specialist(s) within the Environmental Unit) of the ICS and is designed to provide the FOSC/UC with sufficient information to determine if an in-situ burning use request should be made and to provide members of the RRT with sufficient information to approve or disapprove within the first two hours of its receipt. The Administrator of the OSPR is committed to ensuring that stakeholders, including State and Federal trustee agencies as well as local air districts, have input into any recommendation made for the use of in-situ burning. As the review process will be conducted by the Planning Unit, it is within this structure that the stakeholders will fit into the ICS. There is also a need for the petroleum industry to commit and stock necessary resources to successfully implement a timely in-situ burn response. These resources will be secured through the Operations Section of the ICS, with which the Planning Section will also coordinate on in-situ burn decision-making and operational approach.
Air Quality Standards
Since burning will almost always provide for the greatest degree of environmental protection for on-water and nearshore resources (given the ability to remove on-water oil so quickly), a key issue is for the FOSC/UC to ensure that substances from an in-situ burn do not have a significant adverse impact to human health. The primary substance of concern is PM₁₀, the small particulate matter contained in the smoke plume. It is generally accepted that other substances dissipate, reaching background levels well before PM₁₀ does. An in-situ smoke plume usually stays well above ground level  hundreds to thousands of feet  but can reach the ground under certain atmospheric conditions. An action level for PM₁₀ has been established for these guidelines. It is recommended that in-situ burning should not be approved if there is significant risk that the standard would be exceeded where people could be exposed. As a general guideline, a decision to burn should not be made where humans would be exposed to concentrations greater than 50 μg/m³, averaged over a 24-hour period. However, the FOSC/UC must also consider the risk to humans from the volatiles that evaporate since in some circumstances, the adverse impact to humans may be greater from the volatiles than from the particulate matter generated from a burn.
Local Air Pollution Control Districts/Air Quality Management Districts and quick approval zones
Within California, local air districts bear the primary responsibility for control of air pollution from all sources except motor vehicles, which remain the responsibility of the Air Resources Board (California Health and Safety Code 4000, et seq.). Air districts are required to adopt and enforce rules and regulations and to prepare plans which make reasonable provisions to achieve and maintain State and Federal ambient air quality standards in all areas affected by emission sources under their jurisdiction, as well as enforcing all applicable provisions of State and Federal law. California has several different air basins within the State and each basin has an “attainment zone standard” that is to be attained and maintained within the air basin. If attainment zone standards are exceeded, districts can impose several different regulatory mechanisms aimed at reducing air emissions and bringing the air basin back into compliance.
Under California law, the Administrator is responsible for the use of all ARTs in response to an oil spill in marine waters, and he or she serves as the State representative on the RRT. During an oil spill, the Air Pollution Control Officer and/or staff members will be requested to take part in in-situ burn use decision through their participation in the ICS Planning Unit's ART section. The air districts can provide meteorological data and insight to air/flow dynamics and dispersion patterns that are necessary for the FOSC/UC to make appropriate in-situ burn decisions in a timely manner.
Violation of Containment Zone Standards
Local air districts will be concerned if an in-situ burn results in the exceeding of local ambient air quality standards, as this could jeopardize their attainment status. The USEPA issued a letter indicating that in-situ burning as an emergency response would be exempt from the general conformity requirements and may be considered as an exceptional event when considering the area’s overall compliance status. A copy of this letter can be found in Appendix 1. This letter simply makes clear that there is a mechanism to exclude the in-situ burning air quality impacts from the data used to determine an area’s ambient quality standard attainment status.

Trustee Agency Coordination
Marine Sanctuaries
Marine Sanctuaries comprise a significant portion of the coastal waters off California. The use of in-situ burning in the Sanctuaries will require coordination with the Sanctuary Managers and their staff. Though Sanctuaries are represented by the Department of Commerce delegate on the RRT, the Sanctuary Manager and/or staff members will be requested to take part in the In-situ Burning Decision-Making process through their participation in the ICS Planning Unit's Alternative Response Technology (ART) section. The Sanctuaries can provide resource data and insight necessary to make decisions that may otherwise not be available to the UC in a timely manner.
Observation and Monitoring
Air quality monitoring is not a requisite for the approval of an in-situ burn use. However, a case-by-case approval of in-situ burning should be done in a manner that fully considers any potential impact to public health and safety. Monitoring will be instituted as quickly as feasible after the approval to burn. Lack of a monitoring program will not delay a burn after the RRT gives approval.
Until recently, there has not been a standardized approach to monitoring alternative response technology use. A working group of federal scientist and oil spill responders has recently developed the Special Monitoring of Advanced Response Technologies (SMART) program to monitor the effectiveness of alternative response technologies including dispersants. The in-situ SMART program provides a process to rapidly gather information on the emissions from an in-situ burn and provide the information to the UC in a timely manner. Once this program is finalized, it will provide a practical and cost effective approach to monitoring and should be incorporated into the in-situ burn policy.
Procedures for a Case-by-Case Request

1. 
   The FOSC (via the ART group within the Planning Section of the ICS) contacts the proper agency representatives on the RRT (Attachment VIII) and informs them that a request to use in-situ burning may be forthcoming. The FOSC will have the RRT remain on standby for the conference call in step 3.
   

2. 
   The ART group of the Planning Section completes the In-situ Burning Decision-Making Process submits summary of findings and information to FOSC/UC on Case-by-Case Checklist Form and Supplemental Information Form.
   

3. 
   If the FOSC, based on information submitted by the ARTgroup, decides that a request for in-situ burning is appropriate, the FOSC schedules conference call with RRT representatives or alternates at first reasonable opportunity.
   

4. 
   The FOSC/UC/RRT conference call is conducted and a Yes/No decision made based on information provided on FOSC Checklist, Supplemental Information Form or any other sources requested by the RRT, including information from the local air district.
   

5. 
   The ART group of the Planning Section will communicate the RRT decision to the Operations Section and continue coordinating with Operations if a YES Decision has been reached.
   
6. 
   
   

Explanation of Figure 1 Decision-Making Points
The following discussion addresses the seven decision-making points that are a part of the approval process for the use of in-situ burning in marine waters. The discussion briefly identifies the nature of each point and also provides the rationale for each decision point. The number points correspond to the numbers aside the boxes in the In-situ Burning Decision Tree (previous page).

1. 
   If the proposed zone of in-situ burn is 35 miles off-shore and falls within the criteria of the Federal pre-approval zone, then an in-situ burn has already been federally authorized by the RRT. State and local jurisdictions will be notified consistent with the provisions outlined in the LOA.
   

2. 
   Most of the marine waters off California must be considered environmentally sensitive areas due primarily to the presence of foraging seabirds, migrating marine mammals, offshore islands (with bird colonies and marine mammal rookeries and haul outs), and the productive rocky intertidal and subtidal regions and associated kelp forests.
   

3. 
   This specific path of the decision-making process would be rarely taken but it is included for purposes of completeness. There are no foreseeable situations under which an oil spill would not pose a threat to environmental resources. If the unlikely situation occurred where environmental resources were not threatened, the FOSC/UC would rely heavily on the recommendation of the local air districts for a burn/no burn decision.
   

Local Air District Quick Approval Zones
Local Air Districts may have stipulated areas of their offshore air jurisdiction where they will consider that area as falling into a “Quick Approval Zone” if prevailing winds during a proposed in-situ burn operation are blowing offshore or parallel to shore. These distances from shore for each Air District are shown below:

Air District	Quick Approval Zone (minimum distance from shore)
North Coast AQMD	≥ .5 miles from shore
Mendocino AQMD	≥ .5 miles from shore
Bay Area AQMD	≥ .5 miles from shore
Northern Sonoma AQMD	≥ .5 miles from shore
Monterey Bay Unified	No Quick Approval Zone
San Luis Obispo County	≥ 3 miles from shore
Santa Barbara County	≥ 3 miles from shore
Ventura County APCD	≥ .5 miles from shore
South Coast AQMD	≥ 8 miles from shore
San Diego AQMD	≥ .5 miles from shore

4. 
   Weather and sea state conditions can greatly affect the ability to burn oil on water. A minimum burn thickness is necessary to sustain combustion, so containment is always an issue. As this will mostly likely be accomplished by booming operations, those weather and sea state conditions that limit booming operations will operationally limit the ability to burn. As a general guideline, wave heights above 4-5 feet and wind speeds between 15-20 knots are generally the upper limits for boom operations.
   

5. 
   The selection of in-situ burning as a cleanup/response tool would consider whether the spilled petroleum on the surface of the water (and eventually on the shoreline), and/or dispersal into the water column, would pose greater threats to natural resources than would ISB combustion products in the airstream. This consideration includes evaluation of the resources at risk both on the surface of the water and within the surface microlayer and airstreams, by season, and evaluates how exposure to oil might affect the exposed species at a population level. All local, state and federal trustee agencies will work within the UC to determine if an in-situ burn will provide a net environmental benefit and result in the overall greater protection of highly sensitive environmental resources.
   

6. 
   Meteorological and other air dispersion characteristics will be an important component in the local APCD recommendations and decisions regarding an incident-specific in-situ burn. Although vertical mixing is not usually a concern on the open water, plume dynamics can change if the wind direction changes and the plume contacts land. For purposes of a case-by-case determination, the local air districts will provide their best professional judgment with respect to potential public health concerns and assist the ART group in forwarding a recommendation to the FOSC/UC.
   

7. 
   There may be times when in-situ burning may be considered when local air districts are not in full support of the operation. Such circumstances would include the following:
   

1. 
   If onshore contact with human populations is expected to be small enough to limit the level of concern; or
   

2. 
   The FOSC/UC needs to take advantage of the rapid elimination of oil that in-situ burning affords, and before weather conditions change in a manner that leads to very difficult cleanup and extensive environmental damage.
   

If the local air districts do not recommend the use of in-situ burning, they must document their reasons and provide those for review by the FOSC/UC and possibly the RRT. This documentation (the supplemental case-by-case form can be used) should include projected air mixing capability, any modeling and/or air quality exposure information and if concerns can be alleviated by means other than a non-burn decision (e.g., having people stay in houses for duration of burn, burning at night, burning at non-peak hours).

8. 
   Once the RRT IX Case-by-Case Checklist is completed and a decision for in-situ burning use is generated, the FOSC/UC will forward their request, along with any requested data, to the RRT via a phone conference call. (The ART Technical Specialists within the Planning Section can assist with briefings, before-and-after documentation, communications with trustee agencies and local air districts, and any necessary coordination with the Operations Section). Based on the information provided, the RRT will provide an approval/disapproval decision (Appendix IX) to the FOSC regarding the incident-specific use of in-situ burning.