A Dillon team presented a paper at the 41st Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar on environmental contamination and response held in Victoria, British Columbia on October 2-4, 2018. “The seminar provides a forum for professionals working in the field of oil and hazardous materials spills.”
David Creber, Lynn Gagnon and Dave Poole’s paper “Risk Communication Challenge - What are the True Risks of Ship-Source Oil Spills in Canada,” illustrated the complexity of communicating about risk during a recent project to develop the Area Risk Assessment methodology for ship-source oil spills. Identifying and communicating the risks of ship-source oil spills remains critically important to not only regional response planning, but also to provide the public with assurances that the risks are being properly evaluated and mitigated when necessary. How we report on the risks and present the information to the public can be done in a number of ways, some of which are more effective than others. The paper discussed the various methods to present risk assessment findings and best ways to communicate them.