Liquid Fuels Shortage Guidebook For Pennsylvania Local Governments
Last year, PPA President Mike McCarthy created an Energy Assurance Task Force. The purpose of this group was to work to educate state government officials as to the operation of the modern petroleum distribution system within the state.
Members of the task force included Mike Adams. Adams Petroleum Co; Mike DeBerdine, Rhoads Energy Company; Bruce Spiridonoff, Tevis Energy; Quincy Longacre, Buckeye Energy; Paul Kilbride, BRT; Gary Sutko, Source One Transportation; and Ivor Wood, Source One Transportation.
In July 2019 a meeting with the Task Force was held at the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). Other agencies in attendance were DEP, PennDOT and PA State Police.
The state’s focus was how to prepare the Commonwealth for future distributions of petroleum products in times of emergency disaster events. The meeting evolved into an excellent dialogue between PPA industry representatives and the state officials involved.
It was an important step in building a collaborative relationship going forward. Earlier this year, PPA was invited to make a presentation of three regional meetings of county emergency management directors held in Grantville, Pittsburgh and Wilkes Barre.
The key message of these forums was that the state and county governments needed to develop relationships with fuel distributors way in advance of the need.
A Liquid Fuels Shortage Planning Guidebook for Pennsylvania Local Governments was developed and made available to the county officials outlining the intricacies of the system-reflecting the input of PPA .
Each Pennsylvania county office has a designated Emergency Management Coordinator. A current contact list for each county is available online.
Contacting Counties
As a part of this process, PEMA is encouraging counties to directly engage with local fuel distributors prior to a regional fuel shortage scenario.
The PPA would also like to ask our members to proactively reach out to these individuals to ensure they have your contact information and are aware of the services you provide.
A follow up meeting is scheduled to take place in the upcoming weeks with PPA representatives and state agencies to review the petroleum supply and demand impacts due to COVID-19.
Our intention is to continue to strengthen the coordination efforts with state government to prevent and/or minimize supply disruptions at an intra-state, interstate, and regional level.
