Emergency responders will tell you the worst time to prepare for a disaster is in the middle of a disaster. So a new response plan for the Mississippi River should have local personnel ready to spring into action.
The Upper Mississippi River Basin Association (UMBRA) worked with local, state and federal agencies to develop Geographic Response Plans in case of an oil or hazardous material spill.
Lee County Emergency Management Coordinator Steve Cirinna presented the plan for Pool 19 (Gladstone, IL to Keokuk, IA) to the Lee County Board of Supervisors.
"It gathers a lot of the information that you wish you had ahead before this event came in," said Cirinna. "Where are the places you want to keep this out of? Who do you call? Having some incident command forms ... communication forms to an incident action plan, which is how you are going to respond for your incident period. That might be 8 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours. That is generally decided in the beginning and they can change, but a lot of that information is already filled out ahead of time."
Cirinna said UMBRA has been gradually working its way down the river, developing these plans in response to a federal law adopted several decades ago. He said not only does the plan provide contact information and protocols, it also covers strategies for protecting land and wildlife during different river conditions.
Cirinna said while most will associate this plan with oil, plenty of hazardous materials pass through the region.
"Anhydrous is a big one that moves up and down the river and so if any of this enters the river," said Cirinna.
"(We) also have facilities along the river that produce chemicals and stuff like that and if that were to enter ... a stream that enters into a bigger stream that gets into a smaller feeder river that ends up in the Mississippi, so this would help with those strategies also."
The Geographic Response Plan for southeast Iowa and west central Illinois comes about during a time when there is talk of running a crude oil pipeline through the region. Dakota Access' proposed route crosses the Mississippi River just north of Keokuk, above the dam.
Cirinna said the timing is a coincidence -- the plan was already in the works well before the pipeline project was announced.
"The beginning of last year, actually in January because we went up to Burlington in the snow for a meeting to start this process and this was before the pipeline even had an idea of coming through Iowa," said Cirinna.
The next step is to get the plan in the hands of local responders and possibly hold a table-top training exercise in the near future.
There is not a plan yet for the pool south of the Keokuk dam.
