Thanks to everyone who attended our annual meeting and BBQ on March 17th. It was great to get back together after a two-year hiatus caused by the pandemic. We had a good turnout with over thirty individuals from our membership in attendance. A big thank you to our chefs (Mike Getchell, Don Hatfield and Ruben Rodriguez) who put on a top-notch buffet. We were very excited to show off the improvements to our warehouse located at 1961 East Adams Street. A special thank you to Don Hatfield of Moran Environmental Recovery whose extraordinary efforts have made our facility what it is today.
This past year, we signed a new contract with MER that runs thru May 2026. We are very pleased with the service MER has provided as our Oil Spill Recovery Organization. In particular, their efforts to maintain and upgrade our equipment has ensured we are always ready to respond. Over the past couple of years, MER has been called upon to respond to several emergencies and Government Initiated Unannounced Exercises at member facilities. MER’s responses have been extraordinary and have easily met government mandated response and deployment timelines. A big part of MER’s ability to respond so effectively is due to their strategic placement of key equipment throughout the port to dramatically reduce response times. As a reminder, I encourage you to use MER for non-emergency work when possible. Not only will you receive the best available price on equipment, a portion of the cost to rent the equipment goes back into the Co-Op.
This year, we have hired Prevention and Planning Solutions to offer a three-day Environmental Unit Leader (EUL) course. The course will be held on November 1 – 3 at the JEA Conservation Center. This course willcover the EUL functional responsibilities and the EUL role and contributions to the operational planning process and response operations. Anyone wishing to attend must complete ICS 100 and ICS 200. Both of the courses can be completed on-line thru the FEMA website. A link to the FEMA website can be found by clicking on the Resources tab under the Member Login page of our website. As always, this training will be provided at no cost to our membership. I encourage all of you to take every opportunity to become familiar with ICS and attend all available training opportunities. ICS is not only mandated, it is the most cost-effective method for responding to an incident of any magnitude.
Again, thank you all for attending and for your continued membership and support of the Co-Op.
Jim McLaughlin
