Dr. Amy Merten and CDR Elizabeth Kretovic participated in the EPPR Arctic Council's Working Group meeting in Ottawa, Canada. EPPR addresses prevention, preparedness and response to environmental emergencies in the Arctic.

Working Group members share information on best practices and develop guidance, risk assessment methodologies, response exercises, and training.
Dr. Merten presented an update on the Arctic Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) as it is a pilot platform for the EPPR Working Group for sharing international data sets needed for cross-boundary responses. There is an effort to incorporate unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and underwater systems into ERMA in near real-time. The EPPR Working Group will focus on requirements and uses for international incidents in its upcoming work plan.

The presentation also showed how stand-alone ERMA (internet-independent version of ERMA) was used in the 2013 USCG Arctic Shield exercise and plans for the 2014 Healy cruise in August. The next EPPR Arctic Council's meeting will be held in Seattle in December 2014.

For more information, please contact amy.merten@noaa.gov or elizabeth.kretovic@noaa.gov.

Go back to OR&R Weekly Report.