The Hazardous Material Transport Outreach Network (HazMaTON) hosts a HazMaTON Summer Webinar Series each year. The series provides free, publicly available webinars that take place monthly between May and September. The series is meant to provide the latest research and resources to stakeholders in the region to inform decision-making around the complex issue of hazardous material transportation. Anyone with a vested interest in how hazardous material, such as crude oil and its refined products, move throughout the region may find the content informative.
Each webinar is hosted and recorded via Zoom. Recorded webinars are captioned. Watch the recordings on Minnesota Sea Grant’s YouTube channel.
If you have an idea for a webinar topic that you would like us to consider for the 2023 Summer HazMaTON Webinar Series, please contact Sea Grant Great Lakes Transportation Extension Educator Kelsey Prihoda, priho011@d.umn.edu.
Archived Webinars
Introduction to Tribal Spill Response Programs
October 26, 2023
Description: In this final installment of the Hazardous Material Transport Outreach Network (HazMaTON) 2023 Summer Webinar Series, a panel of presenters will provide an overview of three tribal spill response programs in the United States Region 5 Regional Response Team (RRT5).
RRT5 is the planning and coordination body for a geographic area spanning the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, including the upper Great Lakes, upper Mississippi River, and the Ohio River. There are 35 federally-acknowledged tribes within this geographic region.
Hazardous material spills do not acknowledge geographic boundaries, and when a significant spill occurs there is a need for many organizations, including tribal, federal, state, and provincial governments to aid in the response and cleanup. Coordinated response planning is crucial, and as sovereign nations, tribes have the authority to engage in spill preparedness and response activities to serve their communities.
Anyone with an interest in learning more about tribal emergency preparedness authority, examples of tribal spill response programs in the Great Lakes region, and cross-jurisdictional coordination of spill response will find this presentation informative. A live question and answer session will follow the presentation.
Panel presenters:
- Courtney Hessell, environmental services coordinator, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.
- Traven Michaels, environmental response specialist, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.
- Jesse Wesolek, air quality and environmental response specialist, Bay Mills Indian Community.
Presentation resources:
NRCan CanmetENERGY Science Research on Environmental Questions — How Does Oil Behave in Freshwater?
September 27, 2023
Register: Registration is required. This is a virtual event. All of the webinars in this series are free and open to the public. Those who are interested can register for multiple webinars in this series at once.
Description: Heather Dettman, senior science advisor for the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) Multi-Partner Research Initiative will give a presentation about science research and development capabilities of the CanmetENERGY Facility in Devon, Alberta. Heather will also share about the insights gained from meso-scale tank tests of oil spills into freshwater.
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) CanmetENERGY research facilities are Canadian leaders for clean energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment to ensure that the most advanced science knowledge and technologies are available to minimize environmental impacts of energy production, transportation, and use.
Presenter: Heather Dettman, senior science advisor, Natural Resources Canada
Presentation resources:
Role of a Federal On-Scene Coordinator and How the Spill Response Community Prepares for Potential Spills Impacting Lake Champlain
September 6, 2023
Register: Registration is required. This is a virtual event. All of the webinars in this series are free and open to the public. Those who are interested can register for multiple webinars in this series at once.
Description: Crude oil and other hazardous materials are moved by rail along the New York shoreline of Lake Champlain and along the Hudson River. While the probability of a major derailment is low, emergency responders in the area prepare for major response events.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Federal On-Scene Coordinator Carl Pellegrino will give a presentation on his role as federal on-scene coordinator and shed light on the national structure for spill preparedness and emergency response, with emphasis to how it applies in the Lake Champlain region. A live question and answer session will follow the presentation.
Presenter: Carl Pellegrino, federal on-scene coordinator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Presentation resources:
Marine Firefighting: Preventing Environmental Threats While Saving Lives and Property
July 26, 2023
Register: Registration is required. This is a virtual event. All of the webinars in this series are free and open to the public. Those who are interested can register for multiple webinars in this series at once.
Description: This is the second webinar in the Hazardous Material Transport Outreach Network’s 2023 Summer Webinar Series. This webinar will provide an overview of salvage and marine firefighting services.
Topics covered in this presentation include:
- Regulatory background
- Incident command system and response priorities
- Unique challenges of the marine firefighting industry
- Case studies from the U.S. (including the Great Lakes region)
Anyone with an interest in the maritime industry, salvage and marine firefighting, and marine pollution response will find this presentation informative.
Presenter: Jim Elliot, chief operating officer, Teichman Group, LLC.
Presentation resources:
Great Lakes Coast Guard Oil Spill Center of Expertise
May 24, 2023
Description: This is the first webinar in the Hazardous Material Transport Outreach Network’s 2023 Summer Webinar Series. This webinar will provide an introduction to the Great Lakes Coast Guard Oil Spill Center of Expertise and its current and future scope of work. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.
Anyone with an interest in the development and evaluation of technology and equipment for oil spill detection, response, and remediation would benefit from this presentation.
Presenter: Lt. j.g. Alison Gates, assistant chief, U.S. Coast Guard, Great Lakes National Center of Expertise.
Presentation resources:
Why We Exercise, and What Happens After?
September 21, 2022
Description: Join the Hazardous Material Transport Outreach Network for the third and final installment in our 2022 summer webinar series. This webinar will demystify hazardous material spill preparedness and response exercises and networks. U.S. Coast Guard Emergency Manager Brian D.E. Streichert will answer the questions:
- Who does what on a tribal, federal, state, and local level?
- What takes place before a response?
- What would happen if a spill were to occur within the upper Great Lakes?
Streichert will also take us behind the scenes of the recent U.S. Venture, U.S. Oil, and U.S. Coast Guard Equipment Drill that took place on July 19, 2022, at the U.S. Oil Terminal in Rogers City, Michigan. A live question and answer session will follow the presentation.
Presenter: Brian Streichert, Emergency Manager, U.S. Coast Guard, Sector Sault Sainte Marie.
Presentation resources:
- Watch on YouTube.
- Presentation slides.
- FEMA Emergency Management Institute
- HOPE Animal-Assisted Crisis Response
Tribal Treaty Rights and Energy Infrastructure
July 20, 2022
Description: Join the Hazardous Material Transport Outreach Network (HazMaTON) for the second installment of our 2022 summer webinar series. This webinar will examine tribal treaty rights and how they apply to energy infrastructure projects, such as coal terminals and crude oil pipelines. Presenter Kekek Stark, assistant professor of law at the Alexander School of Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana will describe tribal law and treaty rights, their role in protecting natural resources, and the assertion of those rights by Native American and First Nations tribes as regulatory components to energy infrastructure projects. Stark will also provide historical and present-day examples of treaty interpretation by United States courts.
Presenter: Kekek Stark, Assistant Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Indian Law Program, Co-Director of the Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic, and Co-Director of the American Indian Governance and Policy Institute at the Alexander Blewett III School of Law of the University of Montana.
Presentation resources:
- Watch on YouTube.
- Map of Aboriginal Territories Circa 1890 (source: Library of Congress).
- Map of Judicially Recognized Treaty Territories 1975 (source: Library of Congress).
Fueling the Laurentian Great Lakes Region: Multiple Modes, Multiple Perspectives
June 15, 2022
Description: Join the Hazardous Material Transport Outreach Network for the first installment in our 2022 summer webinar series. This panel presentation and discussion will explore the movement of hazardous materials, with a focus on crude oil and its refined products, throughout the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River, Lake Champlain, and Hudson River regions from multiple perspectives. Panelists will provide background on multimodal crude oil transport pathways, the regional energy economy, environmental impacts of crude oil transportation, and social impacts of oil movement and spills. A facilitated question and answer period will follow the presentations.
Presenters and presentation titles:
- Marcello Graziano, Associate Professor, Southern Connecticut State University and Associate Director, Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, University of Connecticut: The Relationship Between Crude Oil Transportation, the Blue Economy, and Existing Economic Development Policies.
- Michael W. Murray, Instructor, Augusta University and Adjunct Associate Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan: Environmental Impacts Associated with Transport of Crude Oil and its Refined Products in the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Watershed.
- Liesel Ritchie, Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Center for Coastal Studies at Virginia Tech: An Overview of Social Dimensions of Marine Oil Spills.
- Richard Stewart, Professor Emeritus and Director of the Transportation and Logistics Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Superior: Multimodal Transportation of Crude Oil and its Refined Products in the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Watershed.
Presentation resources:
Ramping Up and Ramping Down: Crude Oil Rail Shipments and Community Responses 2015 To Present From a Lake Champlain Perspective
June 24, 2020
Presenter: Mark Malchoff, Aquatic Resources Specialist, Lake Champlain Sea Grant.
Presentation resources:
Conceptualizing a Risk-Based, Hazardous Material Routing Tool
July 22, 2020
Presenter: Kristin Lewis, Principal Technical Advisor, U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe Center.
Presentation resources:
Collaborative Efforts To Model Potential Oil Spills in the Great Lakes
June 26, 2019
Presenter: Dr. Guy Meadows, Director, Great Lakes Research Center, Michigan Technological University.
Presentation resources:
Oil Spill Response Exercises and Planning
July 23, 2019
Presenter: Steven Keck, Chief of Contingency Planning and Force Readiness, U.S. Coast Guard Sector Sault Ste Marie, Michigan.
Presentation resources:
Oil Spill Response Capability for Heavy Oil Products
August 19, 2019
Presenter: Bill Hazel, Vice President of Marine Services, Marine Pollution Control in Detroit, Michigan.
Presentation resources:
NOAA Scientific Support for Oil Spills
September 11, 2019
Presenter: Lt. Michael Doig, NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator, U.S. Coast Guard Great Lakes District.
Presentation resources:
Summer 2016 Webinar Series
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