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Emergency Prèppredness Protection civileCanada Canada

Transborder AgreementsComputer Database

on EmergencyPreparedness / Management

HV551.2T73

1992

Transborder Agreements Computer Database

on Emergency Preparedness / Management

by

Dr. Gregory W. Frank Evaluation and Analysis

Technical Report 92-2

Emergency Preparedness Canada

A Product within the Canadian Framework for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction

The opinions expressed are those of the author and not those of Emergency Preparedness Canada nor the

Government of Canada. This study is distributed as a working document to interested parties and should not

be construed as official government policy.

November 1992

I

© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada (1992)

This document is the property of the Government of Canada. Useof the material in this document is permitted, provided that there isan acknowledgement of the source.

?,

Executive Summary

This report documents a computer database containing records of all known transborder Agreements between American and Canadian private or public organizations, pertaining to emergency preparedness and/or emergency management issues. Agreements are classified by a hierarchy of idendfiers, including:

- identification, dates of activation, revision or expiry; - geographic region of interest; - authority of signatories for both nations; - level of government and government departments entering into the agreement; - conditions under which agreement is made effective; - the type and scale of emergency addressed; - impact of response on government and agencies; - authorization of action or planning; - references and other agencies affected by the agreement; - keyword summary of agreement.

The database is organized to facilitate both simple and complex searches for agreements of interest.

Sommaire

Ce rapport traite d'une banque de données informatisée sur toutes les ententes canado-américaines connues des secteurs public et privé et relatives à la planification et à l'intervention d'urgence. Ces ententes sont classifiées selon diverses caractéristiques, dont :

- l'identification et les dates d'entrée en vigueur, d'amendement ou d'expiration - les régions géographiques visées - les signataires des deux pays - les paliers de gouvernement et les ministères visés par l'entente - les conditions d'applicabilité de l'entente - le genre et l'ampleur de la situation d'urgence visée - l'impact de l'intervention sur les gouvernements ou organismes - le droit d'intervenir ou de planifier - des références ou autres organismes concernés par l'entente - des mots clés résumant l'entente

La banque de données a été conçue pour faciliter des recherches simples ou plus complexes sur les ententes.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary / Sommaire iiTable of Contents inList of Figures iii

Transborder Agreements 1Agreement Compilation 1The Classification System 3Database Structure 4Starting the database 4Searching: Locating Arrangements 5Searching: Linking Fields 6Conclusion 7

Annex 1: Database Contents - Primary Identifiers 8

Annex 2: Database Contents - Secondary Identifiers 14

Annex 3: Database Contents - Tertiary Identifiers 15

List of Figures

Figure 1: Provincial / State Interfaces (For Emergency Preparedness /Management Purposes) 2

TRANSBORDER AGREEMENTS COMPUTER DATABASE ON EMERGENCY

PREPAREDNESS / MANAGEMENT

Transborder Agreements Transborder emergency agreements are agreements between an

American and a Canadian private or public organization pertaining to emergency preparedness and/or emergency management issues. Transborder agreements are designed to facilitate prompt and efficient response to emergency situations occurring on or near the Canada - United States border. As an example, the border crossing of a fire truck and crew from Niagara Falls, New York, to Niagara Falls, Ontario, requires the existence of a transborder agreement impacting on Customs and Immigration regulations and procedures in both countries. Approximately two hundred such agreements exist, covering many scales of governmental organization, and ranging in scope from long standing verbal agreements concerning availability of local firefighting and ambulance resources, to formal agreements such as the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817, which established a 'disarming' of the common boundary between the two nations. Figure 1 shows U.S. and Canadian provincial/state interfaces, together with EPC and FEMA administrative regions.

Agreement Compilation In recognition of the number of transborder agreements' which

affect the two countries in the area of Emergency Preparedness/Management, the 1987 Canadian-United States Consultative Group Meeting proposed compiling a 'census' of all transborder emergency agreements. This was to be made available to the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Emergency Preparedness Canada (EPC). The review was to obtain a complete inventory of agreements of all types and at all levels, and to examine, classify and index the inventory in an appropriate manner. The compilation and

1 The word 'Agreement' is used to include Treaties, Exchanges of Letters and Notes, Executive Agreements, Memoranda of Understanding, Compacts, Letters of Understanding, and Informal Written and Unwritten arrangements.

2

classification was performed under an EPC contract,2 and the collectedinformation provided in the form of several hundred 8"x5" index cards. Ifone agreement applied to several provinces/states or departments, therewas a card of this agreement for each. This document reports theirincorporation into a computer database.

Figure 1: Provincia]/State Interfaces(For Emergency Prepa^.-edness/Management Purposes)

Province or FEMATerritory T State region

YukonAlaska X

British WashingtonColumbia Idaho

Alberta MontanaVIII

Saskatchewan North DakotaManitoba

EL-'C Minnesota FEMAV

MichiganOntario Ohio

Pennsylvania IIINew York II

VermontQuebec New I

Hampshire

New MaineBrunswick 1 -1

2 "A Review of United States / Canada Agreements Related to EmergencyPreparedness / Management", EPC Contract No. 7A 872, Final Report 31 May 1988.

3

The Classification system The manual classification system was provided with the proviso that

it should be readily adaptable for computer use. Consequently a description of agreements in terms of variables amenable to computer implementation was developed. The resulting 'catalogue' provides an easily understood and readily accessible description of agreements, and conditions under which each is made effective.

A cataloguing system unique to the task at hand was developed, in response to the lack of symmetry in areas of responsibility between U.S. and Canadian authorities and agencies. As an example, a Canadian provincial hydro-electric power corporation may enter into an agreement with a U.S. federal hydro-electric power entity, while in other cases a similar Canadian entity is dealing with an autonomous private company.

Each agreement in the catalogue is identified by a set of primary and secondary identifiers (documented at Annex 1 and 2 respectively). A set of tertiary identifiers is also given (documented at Annex 3). Primary identifiers are those usually considered important operationally. The order of these within the database may be different from the order shown here: 3

i) identification of the agreement (including an agreement identification number, title of the agreement, an alpha-numeric identifier for each nation, and a brief summary of the content of the agreement);

ii) the level of government entering into the agreement (for both nations);

iii) the government departments entering into the agreement (for both nations);

iv) the conditions under which the agreement is made effective; v) the type of emergency addressed; vi) the scale of emergency addressed; vii) the type of response covered by the agreement; viii) the impact of the 'response on other levels of governments and

agencies; ix) whether the agreement authorized action (operations), or was

only a planning document.

3 The ordering of the field variables within the database is entirely a matter of convenience; field variables are easily rearranged to suit a particular application.

4

i

r

Secondary identifiers are:

i) date of the agreement, including dates of activation, revision,and expiry;

ii) the authority of the signatories (for both nations);iii) references (U.S. Treaty Series, U.S. Treaties in Force, and

Canadian Treaty Series numbers); andiv) listings of agencies (other than signatories) affected by the

agreement.

Tertiary information consisted of a set of 'key word' listings (documented atAnnex 3). This allows a search for a document in a generic style beyond thetabulated specifics.

Database structureThis document records the incorporation of the Transborder

Agreement database into an electronic form. A database consists ofrecords, data structures consisting of a number of data fields. In thisdatabase, each record consists of a single transborder agreement, whileeach field describes an attribute of the individual agreement. The elementsof each agreement's data fields are detailed in the Appendix, giving thevariable name, field data type, and a description of the field variables. Thedatabase operates in the FoxPro software environment. This is a powerfulrelational database management package supporting both simple queriesand complicated database manipulations. The database is sufficientlysimple that most users will only need use simple queries and searches.

Starti.ng the databaseThe Transborder Agreement database is provided on a single

diskette, in a MAC computer format. The diskette contains the databasefile (TBA.DBF) and several support files. The database may be activatedeither by double clicking on the TBA.DBF icon or through the FOXBASEapplication itself.4 To view the database, click on the Browse command inthe View window.5

4 To streamline this report, details of running FOXBASE are suppressed. See theFOXBASE Quick Start - Tutorial for detailed information on running the application.5 In this tutorial section, database commands and menu selections will appear inbold italics; field variables will appear in bold and the value assigned to a field variable willappear in italics.

5

Searching: Locating ArrangementsThe simplest search involves locating a known agreement record

within the database. This is accomplished using the Locate commandunder the Record menu. As an example, to locate the TransborderAgreement entitled 'Air Search and Rescue':

- Click on the Record menu selection.:

- Move the mouse to the Locate selection, the Locate dialog boxappears.

- Choose For from the dialog box, the expression builder dialogappears.

- Double click on the variable Title in the field names box. Thevariable TBA->Title appears in the expression builder.

- Choose the equals sign (=) from the Logical pull-down menu in theexpression builder dialog box.

- Enter 'AIR SEARCH AND RESCUE' from the keyboard. Thisassigns a (character) value to the variable TBA->Title. The search iscase-sensitive, and the title character string must be enclosed inmatching quotes (either single or double).

- The expression builder should contain the command:

TBA->Title =AIR SEARCHAND RESCUE'

- Click the OK button to return to the Locate dialog box, and theLocate button to activate the search.

- The record pointer is on the record with the title 'Air Search andRescue' (record number 72).

As another example, use the Locate command to locate theagreement with U.S. reference number UF-DD-04. To do this, selectRecord/Locate/For as shown above. Select Us_ref from the Field Namesbox, = from the Logical menu, and 'UF-DD-04' from the keyboard. SelectOK and Locate from the expression builder and Locate menus, respectively.The Agreement 'Industrial Security Agreement' (record number 95) is nowhighlighted.

6

Searching: Linking fields The ability to search multiple fields is a powerful tool for database

management. As an example, to obtain a listing of all Transborder Agreements between Alberta and Montana:

- Click on the Record menu selection.

- Move the mouse to the Locate selection, the Locate dialog box appears.

- Choose For from the dialog box, the expression builder dialog appears.

- Double click on Ab in the field names box. The variable TBA- >Ab appears in the expression builder. This is a Boolean variable whose default value within the expression builder is True. 6

- Choose the 'and' clause (AND.) from the Logical pull-down menu in the expression builder dialog box.

- Choose Mt from the field names box.

- The expression builder should contain the command: TBA->Ab .A1VD.TBA->Mt

This command initiates a search for all records while occur in Alberta (Ab=-True) AND Montana (Mt=True).

- Click the OK button to return to the Locate dialog box, and the Locate button to activate the search.

- The record pointer is on record number 59. As there are several Agreements in effect between Alberta and Montana, the Continue command under the Record menu selection can be used to select the following record numbers:

6 The default value of a Boolean variable within the expression builder is True in that the command

TBA->Ab AND. TBA->Mt initiates a search for all records for which the variables TBA->Ab and TBA.Mt are assigned a value True. This convention is counter to that seen while browsing the database: Boolean variables are there set to a default value of False. A False value is denoted by either an F or a blank field desciiptor, while a True value is denoted T.

7

59 116 185114 117 196115 183

:

The Boolean variables can also be used to conduct other types ofsearches. For example, to list all Agreements in effect either in BritishColumbia (BC) OR in North Dakota (ND): Select Record/Locate/For asabove. Select BC from the Field Names box, . OR. from the Logical menu,and ND from the Field Names box. Select OK and Locate from theExpression Builder and Locate menus, respectively. Using the Continuecommand, the following Agreements are identified:

32 108 165 19045 117 167 19146 121 168 19247 122 183 19350 124 184 19459 125 185 19566 126 186 19667 161 187 197106 163 188107 164 189

ConclusionThis report documented a computer database containing records of

all known transborder Agreements between American and Canadianprivate or public organizations, pertaining to emergency preparednessand/or emergency management issues. The database is easily upgraded toaccommodate revisions and new agreements as they develop. The databasewas designed to facilitate searches both for individual agreements as wellas searches for agreements sharing common areas of concern.

8

ANNEX 1: DATABASE CONTENTS -PRIMARY IDENTIFIERS

il

Each agreement in the catalogue is identified by a set of primary,secondary, and tertiary identifiers. Annex 1 lists primary identifiers:those usually considered most important operationally. The identifierlisting within the database may be rearranged at convenience, and will notnecessarily match the order shown here. Primary identifiers include:

i) identification of the agreement;ii) the level of government entering into the agreement;iii) the government departments entering into the agreement;iv) the geographic region under which the agreement is effective;v) the type of emergency addressed;vi) the scale of emergency addressed;vii) the type of response covered by the agreement;viii) the impact of the response on other levels of governments and

agencies;ix) whether the agreement authorized action, or was only a

planning document.

Variable name Data type DescriptionAgr_id Numeric Agreement

identification number.Assigned forcataloguing purposesonly.

Variable nameTitle

Data typeCharacter

DescriptionAgreement title.

Variable nameI US_ref

Data typeCharacter

DescriptionU.S. Reference code.

Each agreement has a Canadian and U.S. alpha-numeric identifier. The U.S.identifier consists of three two-character groups. The first group begins with 'U'(for United States), followed by a second letter identifying the government level ofagreement:

Data type Description Character Canadian reference

code.

Variable name Can_ref

9

Federal (F), Province (P), Local (L) or Multi-Level (M).

The second two-letter group identifies the federal department or state involved, and the final two digits are simply serialized numbers. For example, UF-DC-02 identifies a United States Federal agreement by the Commerce Department, and is the second agreement listed. To facilitate use in both countries, each agreement has both a United States and a Canadian identifier.

U.S. Federal Department Abbreviations

CG U.S Coast Guard (Dept. of Transportation) DC Department of Commerce (includes NOAA and NWS) DD Department of Defense DE Department of Energy DI Department of the Interior FC Federal Communications Commission FE Federal Emergency Management Agency PS U.S. Postal Service BE Department of Health and Human Services IJ International Joint Commission IN Immigration and Naturalization Service (Dept. of Justice) NA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NB Nuclear Regulatory Commission NT National Telecommunications and Information Administration PA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency PS U.S. Postal Service SD Department of State SL St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation

(Dep. of Transportation)

Canadian identifiers are alpha-numeric codes consisting of three two-character segments. The first letters is C (for Canada), the second letter identifies the Canadian level of the agreement:

Federal (F), Province (P), Local (L) or Multi-Level (M).

The third and fourth letters identify the federal department or province, and the final two-character cluster are straight serialized numbers. Standard U.S. postal abbreviations for provinces are used. For example, CP-AB-01 identifies the first Canadian Provincial agreement by Alberta. To facilitate use in both countries, each agreement has both a United States and a Canadian identifier.

10

:

J.

A

Canadian Federal department abbreviations

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.Department of CommunicationsDepartment of External AffairsEnvironment CanadaEmployment and Immigration CanadaDepartment of Energy, Mines and ResourcesEmergency Preparedness CanadaHealth and Welfare CanadaInternational Joint CommissionDepartment of Indian and Northern AffairsDepartment of National DefenceSt. Lawrence SeawaySupply and Services CanadaTransport Canada

Variable nameContent

Variable nameI US_level

Data typeMemo

Data typeCharacter

DescriptionDescription of content.

DescriptionU.S. level.

Multi-Level (MTL) agreements have primary impact on several departments andagencies at federal, as well as provincial, state and local levels.

Federal (FED),State (STATE),Local (LOCAL) orMulti-Level (MTL).

Variable naine Data type DescriptionCdn_level Character Canadian level.

Multi-Level (MTL) agreements have primary impact on several departments andagencies at federal, as well as provincial, state and local levels.:

Federal (FED),Province (PROV),Local (LOCAL) orMulti-Level (MTL).

Variable name Data type DescriptionAk .. Nb Boolean Geographic location

Provincial and state abbreviations conform to US postal standards:

11

Y

Identifier State

AKIDMEMIMNMT

AlaskaIdahoMaineMichiganMinnesotaMontana

Variable name Data typeBC..PQ Boolean

Identifier State

NDNH

OHPAVTWA

North DakotaNew HampshireNew YorkOhioPennsylvaniaVermontWashington

DescriptionGeographic location

Provincial and state abbreviations conform to US postal standards:

Identifier

ABBCMBNB

State Identifier State

AlbertaBritish ColumbiaManitobaNew Brunswick

Variable name Data typeE-type(1..3) Character

ONPQSKYT

The types of emergencies are divided into five main classes:

i. Natural occurrences;ii. Industrial/urban accidents;iii. Transportation accidents;iv. War or threat of war, and;V. Miscellaneous.

Each main class is divided into several areas, as follows:

EMERGENCY TYPE CODING

Natural Emergencies (NAT)NAT-O1 ComprehensiveNAT-02 Forest FireNAT-03 Floods, etc.NAT-04 PrecipitationNAT-05 EarthquakesNAT-06 VolcanicNAT-07 Ice ConditionsNAT-08 Weather

OntarioQuebecSaskatchewanYukon Territory

DescriptionEmergency type.

A

War (WAR) WAR-01 WAR-02 WAR-03 WAR-04

Industrial/Urban IND-01 IND-02 IND-03 IND-04 IND-05 IND-06

Variable naine Scale

Data type Character

Description Scale type.

Variable name R-type(1..3)

Data type Character

Description Response type.

Comprehensive NBC/CBA Air Attack Planning

(IND) Comprehensive Fire Nuclear Power Failure Chemical Pollution Hazardous Waste

12

Transportation/Material (TRA) TRA-01 Comprehensive TRA-02 Marine TRA-03 Air TRA-04 Ground (Road/Rail)

Miscellaneous (MIS) MIS-01 MIS-02 MIS-03 MIS-04

Human Disease WAR-02 Plant/Animal Disease. Sabotage Bomb Threat

The scale of an emergency is defined as Local, Regional, or National:

Local Regrional National

Emergency responses do not fall into easily identified groups. The approach consists of classifying responses in a descending order of physical movement and action, as follows:

LOC REG NAT

13

I

EDIERGENCY RESPONSE TYPE CODING

R-01 ComprehensiveR-02 Transborder Move of Personnel and Equipment - FireR-03 Transborder Move of Personnel and Equipment - PoliceR-04 Transborder Move of Personnel and Equipment - MedicalR-05 Transborder Move of Personnel and Equipment - Spec'listR-06 Transborder Move of Personnel and Equipment - LabourR-07 Transborder Move of Personnel and Equipment - SARR-08 Refugee ControlR-09 Vessel Traffic ManagementR-10 Ice BreakingR-21 Agreement to CooperateR-22 Information ExchangeR-23 Liaison Officer ExchangeR-24 Communications ControlR-25 Priorities AllocationR-26 Authorization for ActionR-27 TrainingR-28 Power SwitchingR-29 Water Level Control

Variable name Data typeImpacts_on Memo

DescriptionAgreement impacts.

Departmentsfetc., other than that entering into the agreement, which areaffected by the agrèement

Variable name Data 1,ypeOper

Variable nameComment

Character

Data typeMemo

DescriptionOperations or planningtype

DescriptionMiscellaneouscomments.

Variable name Reference

Data type Memo

Description Agreement references.

Data type Character

Variable name Can_auth

Description Canadian authority.

Data type Character

Description U.S. authority.

Variable name US_auth

Data type Date

Variable name Date_exp

Description Expiry date (if known, m-d-y).

Data type Date

Variable name Date_in

Description Activation date (if known, m-d-y).

Data type Date

Description Revision date (if known,

Variable name Date_rev

14

ANNEX 2: DATABASE CONTENTS - SECONDARY IDENTIFIERS

Each agreement in the catalogue is identified by a set of primary, secondary, and tertiary identifiers. Annex 2 lists secondary identifiers. The identifier listing within the database may be rearranged at convenience, and will not necessarily match the order shown here. Secondary identifiers include:

i) date of the agreement, including dates of activation, revision, and expiry;

ii) the authority of the signatories (for both nations); iii) references (U.S. Treaty Series, U.S. Treaties in Force, and

Canadian Treaty Series numbers), and; iv) listings of agencies (other than signatories) affected by the

agreement.

15

ANNEX 3: DATABASE CONTENTS -TERTIARY IDENTIFIERS

Tertiary information consists of a set of 'key word' listings. Thisallows a search for a document in a generic style beyond the tabulatedspecifics.

Variable nameKeywordn

Data typeCharacter

Desc,•riptionKeyword description.

The variable namesKeywordl, Keyword 2, ..., Keyword 6

_4!

contain up to six keywords used in describing the agreement. Locatingarrangements using the keywords is discussed in the main body of thetext.7

AIR POLLUTIONAIR QUALITYAIR TRAFFICAMBULANCEATOMIC ENERGYAUDIT

BOMB THREATBROADCAST

COASTALWATERS

COMMUNICATIONCONSULTATIONCOOPERATION

DATA EXCHANGE

EARTHQUAKEEMERGENCY

PLANNING

FEDERALCOMPREHENSIVE

FIRE FIGHTINGFLOODSFOREST FIRESFREQUENCIES

HAZARDOUSWASTE

ICE BREAKINGINDUSTRY

LOCALCOMPREHENSIVE

MAILMARINE TRAFFICMILITARY

COOPERATIONMOBILIZATIONMOUNTAINS

NAVIGATIONNUCLEAR

RESEARCH

OIL POLLUTION

PLANNINGPOWERPRIORITIESPROVINCIALCOMPREHENSIVE

RADIATIONREPORTING

RADIOREFUGEECONTROL

RESEARCH ANDDEVELOPMENT

SAFETYSATELLITESSEARCH ANDRESCUE

SECURITYSTATECOMPREHENSIVE

STRIKES

TESTINGTRADETRAININGTRANSPORTATION

VESSELACCIDENT

VOLCANO

WATER CONTROLWATER

POLLUTIONWATER QUALITYWEATHER

7 As the FoxPro database operates in a default case-sensitive mode, keywords mustbe entered in upper case letters during a keyword search.

i0 PC/Si i^^iïïHV 551.2 T73 1992

Transborder agreements computer

database on emergency

preparedness/ management

DATE DUE SLIP

F255 II 0

•

b