GROTON, Conn. – Naval Submarine Base New London (SUBASE) hosted a water system tabletop exercise (TTX) with state and local partners November 13 to ensure installation water service resilience.
The TTX focused on incident information sharing procedures and emergency response and recovery operations related to a hypothetical incident impacting the water system on SUBASE.
The exercise was not in response to any specific threat impacting the base water system or its supplier Groton Utilities. Rather, the TTX supported efforts led by the Navy to periodically review and improve the preparedness and resilience of installation water service systems, such as SUBASE’s.
The Director of Water Security and Resilience from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment traveled from the Pentagon to SUBASE to observe the exercise.
“Navy installation water systems are critical physical infrastructure,” said Lisa Aboud. “Potable and drinking water safety as well as fire system water availability are essential to base operations and ensuring our Navy meets its mission.”
Supporting the exercise were state and local partners including representatives from Region 4 of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP); Ledge Light Health District (LLHD); and Groton Utilities.
SUBASE Emergency Manager John Varone, who coordinated the exercise and served as facilitator, highlighted the significance of community partner participation.
“Opportunities to train and exercise emergency plans as a team with our state and local partners are invaluable,” said Varone. “This tabletop exercise allows us to proactively practice multi-agency collaboration, collectively identify ways to keep the base population safe, and jointly ensure the hardening and resilience of our systems and response.”
The “what if” crisis scenario of the tabletop exercise tested participants in what they would do if the installation’s water supply was compromised – not only in the hours following a system attack, but also in the days after as the crisis was resolved.
The TTX was developed as an open discussion where the SUBASE Emergency Management and Training Team could inject realistic scenario details, such as the revelation of an apparent insider-threat attack on the system, or ask participants key questions, to keep the exercise progressing.
SUBASE’s water is supplied from Groton Utilities and provided to the base’s end-users via the installation’s extensive underground water delivery system. In addition to Groton Utilities participation, the base Public Works Department had many members of its Utilities and Energy Management Division join in the exercise.
“We wanted to get our base technicians alongside experts from outside,” said Commander Austin Rasbach, SUBASE Public Works Officer. “Putting everyone together to walk through the process helps to break down any stove-pipes between organizations and anticipated response actions.”
As a result, Rasbach felt the exercise successfully provided insight into the teamwork, partnerships, and relationships necessary to ensure an effective and efficient multi-agency, incident response.
Similarly, Varone positively noted, that as resilience following the loss of a mission critical resource like water was the focus of the event, participants quickly saw the importance of established continuity plans and the value of good emergency public information.
SUBASE Executive Officer, Commander Brad Boyd, who observed the exercise, was pleased that the SUBASE team as well as community partners managed to collect a number of lessons learned, and together they will now seek to incorporate improvements into the response plan.
“Planning and preparing for incidents that have significant impacts on the health and safety of our Sailors and base are only one part of ensuring our readiness to respond,” said Boyd. “Exercises like this TTX are the other crucial aspect. They allow us to test our plans and continually improve.”
Aboud praised the SUBASE exercise.
“The Navy has a new policy in place standardizing the framework for overseeing, evaluating, and maintaining our drinking water systems across the shore enterprise,” said Aboud. “It’s great to see first-hand that installations like SUBASE are not only focused on water system oversight and monitoring but also on challenging exercises like this that help improve water service management, operations, and resilience."
The Navy’s new water service resilience efforts are outlined in CNICINST 5090.7, Naval Drinking Water Program Management Ashore.