Project 3.5
Cross Border O&M Collaboration - Workshop

May 21, 2008 Workshop

The North/West Passage Pooled Fund Study held a workshop on May 21, 2008 in Bloomington, Minnesota. The workshop was designed to provide participants from the North/West Passage states a chance to discuss current best practices and future opportunities for Operations and Maintenance collaboration across state borders. A total of 15 state agency representatives from the eight North/West Passage states participated in the workshop.

The following bullets summarize the North/West Passage Cross Border Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Workshop accomplishments and recommendations.

• Participants built new working relationships and were able to share information about how to improve communication and collaboration at state borders in the North/West Passage corridor. This included sharing lessons learned, expressing the benefits of improved collaboration, establishing a vision, identifying current practices and tools/resources, discussing issues and barriers to overcome, and identifying specific near term actions they all can begin to implement.
• The following North/West Passage cross border O&M collaboration vision was established:
  • North/West Passage operations and maintenance activities will contribute to:
    • Safe travel conditions throughout the corridor for people and goods
    • Sharing information through center to center communications
    • Providing accurate, timely, consistent traveler information
      • Updated as conditions change
    • Sharing of resources to mutually aid neighboring states
    • Timely delivering of goods and services
• Specific near term activities and next steps were also identified by the group.

October 7, 2008 Conference Call

At the request of the workshop participants, a follow-up conference call was planned and conducted on October 7, 2008. The purpose of this call was to obtain a status from each state regarding progress made toward the next steps identified during the workshop and to continue sharing experiences and ideas to improve O&M collaboration at the NWP state borders.

Related Links

• May 21, 2008 Workshop Proceedings (PDF, 2235K)
• Oct. 7, 2008 Discussion Notes (PDF, 93K)