JUNE 17, 2016--The NOAA-chaired Emergency Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (EPPR) Working Group of the Arctic Council supported the USCG-led international tabletop exercise on Arctic oil spill preparedness and response in Montreal, Canada. This exercise, a hypothetical collision in Norway, represents the culmination of six months of preparation, during which various elements of international emergency communication and logistics have been tested. NOAA offered expertise in oil spill trajectory modeling, data management, weather forecasting, and other scientific support through the request for aid. NOAA’s Environmental Response and Management Application (ERMA^®), an online mapping tool for environmental response, played a key role as the mapping and data transfer platform for the drill. Council members from eight Arctic nations strive to meet the objectives of safe, environmentally sound Arctic access and resource management. The process developed will be transferred to Finland as they will have responsibility for exercising the operational guidelines or the agreement under its Chairmanship (2017-2019).

The exercise was conducted on the margins of the EPPR meeting. Other high priority topics included a workshop on the Development of Standards in Relation to Prevention of Pollution in the Arctic; development of EPPR's work plan for Search and Rescue (SAR) in the Arctic; and interactions with the Arctic Coast Guard Forum on oil spill preparedness and response and SAR. For more information on EPPR, please see: the EPPR website and @EPPR_Arctic.

For more information, contact Amy.Merten@noaa.gov.

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