Natural and man-made disasters seem to be wreaking havoc around the world. Federal, state, and local government organizations are continually considering these threats in their current and future emergency management planning.
One resource helping U.S. Department of Energy officials make these plans is the Emergency Management Issues Special Interest Group, an organization sponsored by the DOE Office of Plans and Policy (NA-41). Emergency management professionals across DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration complex — both federal and contractor — make up EMI SIG membership.
Several Legacy Management Strategic Partners (LMSP), contractors to the DOE Office of Legacy Management, are emergency management professionals and EMI SIG members. Their participation led to LM serving as a first-time cohost, with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Western Area Power Administration, for the 37th EMI SIG Annual Meeting held April 25-27, in Broomfield, Colorado.
Established in 1986 to include all phases of emergency management, EMI SIG provides a “collaborative network of experienced emergency management professionals across the enterprise to support site compliance with DOE orders and guidance, share lessons learned and best practices, and leverage resources to support emergency plans and programs.” The group also “assists in disseminating and interpreting policy, promotes evolving emergency management technologies, and benchmarks departmental emergency management operations.”
EMI SIG members are emergency managers, coordinators, planners, and trainers from DOE facilities. A steering committee, composed of DOE sponsors and advisors and EMI SIG members, approves products for SIG subcommittees and working groups to develop. EMI SIG conducts an annual meeting that includes presentations, panel discussions, and workshops on emergency management topics of interest to members. In addition to meeting individually at the annual meeting, subcommittees, working groups, and task groups also hold regular virtual meetings throughout the year.
“I serve on the EMI SIG Steering Committee, which is the body that oversees the strategic direction of EMI SIG,” said Jesse Sievers, LMSP Emergency Management department manager. “Last year, after consulting with our LM partners, I offered Denver as a place for the conference and for LM to cohost, which is how we ended up cohosting with NREL and WAPA.”
Sievers says the steering committee worked in partnership with NNSA to organize the annual meeting and held regional working meetings throughout the year to support this event.
LM hosted an information booth, and LMSP staff gave three presentations to share how LM continues to grow by adding new sites every year and developing a comprehensive emergency management program.
LM manages the nuclear weapons-production legacy for former weapons complex sites that have been cleaned up and turned over to LM for long-term stewardship. LM manages more than 100 sites and several programs across the country, including the Uranium Leasing Program, Defense-Related Uranium Mines, and Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program.
No two LM sites are the same, ranging from large former nuclear weapon production sites like the Rocky Flats Site in Colorado and the Fernald Preserve site in Ohio, to small, privately owned Manhattan Project manufacturing and fabricating facilities that helped create the first atomic bombs used during World War II. Some sites are in urban industrial areas, while others, like former uranium mill sites, are in rural areas. Each site has its own emergency management challenges.
Commonly, the sites lack on-site emergency responders. Since LM does not have police or fire departments under their control, they must work with local organizations to provide emergency response capabilities for their sites. LM site managers identify appropriate response agencies and develop agreements to support response actions.
Prior to 2018, emergency management functions were fractured and responsibilities were distributed in various organizations across LM. There were no emergency management professionals on staff and no centralized emergency management system. In 2018, LMSP hired two emergency management professionals and in 2019 began conducting evaluations and assessments to support creating an office-wide program.
New professional emergency management staff were brought in and formed an Emergency Management Department. EMD initiated several programmatic self-assessments and determined the need to develop an LM watch office to take and respond to emergency calls 24/7. In addition, the new team identified the need for creating an offsite response interface program. The interface program includes a framework for tracking existing response agreements with local, state, tribal, and federal emergency response agencies, and identifying where new agreements need to be pursued. The program also identifies specific hazards at individual LM sites and provides information and documentation to responding agencies, so they are aware of any issues. LM continues to develop additional program-support tools as the emergency management program progresses.
In 2022, EMD conducted a wildland fire management program evaluation, which identified the need for a site-wide, integrated wildland fire management plan and strategy. The evaluation identified where LM’s wildland fire-protection procedures needed to be consistent with DOE standards and federal policies that were upgraded in 2016. LM is currently revising those policies to meet the standards.
At the end of the three-day annual meeting, EMI SIG recognized two LM and LMSP personnel for their contributions to the group over the past year and at the meeting.
EMI SIG selected LM Emergency Management Program Manager Greg Cummings, as the “Federal Member of the Year” for being “a steadfast champion of a new emergency management program within LM,” and for helping to coordinate the annual meeting. Throughout the year, he supported EMD in developing drills and exercises, training, and readiness assurance programs, as well as an enhanced LM Watch Office to support the office’s mission to protect life, property, and environmental resources. Cummings also contributed greatly to the EMI SIG community and the Annual Meeting, working with the local communities to coordinate an LM exhibit and handout items, the opening ceremony color guard, multiple presentations from LM, and welcoming remarks from LM and LMSP leadership, as well as a closing presentation from the DOE Lead Historian, Eric Boyle. “Please join me in congratulating our coworker Greg Cummings for being selected as the Federal Member of the Year at the 37th Emergency Management Issues Special Interest Group Annual Meeting,” said LM Director Carmelo Melendez. “I want to acknowledge all the efforts from the combined federal and partner staff that has collaborated in an area that is extremely important but often overlooked.”Also earning two awards at the EMI SIG Annual Meeting was LMSP EMD Offsite Response Interface Program Coordinator Cody Dye, who earlier this year was elected as the Subcommittee for Emergency Management Planners co-vice chairperson.Dye is a member of two groups within the subcommittee that earned annual awards: “Working Group of the Year” for the Emergency Management Resource Working Group developing and promoting the emergency management resource library and database; and the “Task Group of the Year” for the DOE Order 151.1D, Comprehensive Emergency Management System, Rewrite Task Group that developed a process to obtain contractor feedback for the upcoming DOE Order rewrite, which establishes departmental policy and assigns roles and responsibilities for emergency management.
Original source can be found here.