U.s. Environnemental Protection Agency

Epa Could Improve Contingency Planning for Oil and Hazardous Substance Response U.s. Environnemental Protection Agency

EPA regions have expanded contingency planning by creating additional plans and materials, but regions cannot maintain this large volume of information with their limited resources. Regions have created subarea contingency plans, geographic response plans and strategies, and various web-based tools. This structure exceeds the three levels of plans established in the Oil Pollution Act, which revised the NCP to expand the response system. The NCP requires national planning in the form of an NCP, regional planning by each Regional Response Team in the form of Regional Contingency Plans, and area planning by Area Committees in the form of Area Contingency Plans. Regions developed additional plan materials because regional On-Scene Coordinators find them necessary to respond to incidents. Some written plans miss some NCP requirements, contain duplicative information, and are out-of-date. Technological methods?instead of revising written plans?would enable EPA to maintain current information needed to efficiently respond to spills.