Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know
The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, (EPCRA) also known under the Superfund Ammendments and Reauthorization Act as SARA Title III, was enacted in November 1986. This law provided an infrastructure at the state and local levels to plan for chemical emergencies.
Facilities that have spilled hazardous substances, or that store, use, or release certain chemicals are subject to various reporting requirements. All of this information is made publicly available so that interested parties may become informed about potentially dangerous chemicals in their community.
Common EPCRA topics include: emergency planning; hazardous chemical inventory reporting; public access to chemical information; toxic chemical release reporting and the Form R; and the toxics release inventory (TRI) database.
Facilities subject to Section 312 of CERCLA must report their discharges of the specified chemicals annually in the EPCRA Chemical Inventory (Form R) Reports. These reports must be submitted by March 1st of each year to:
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Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC),
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Local fire department, and
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State Emergency Response Commission (SERC)
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In 1985, the Oregon Legislature passed the Oregon Community Right to Know and Protection Act which requires the Office of State Fire Marshal’s (OSFM) Community Right to Know Unit (CR2K) to administer an annual Hazardous Substance Information Survey (HSIS) of Oregon facilities and government agencies. The HSIS is sent to facilities that have reportable quantities of hazardous substances and to facilities that operate under North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes that have been determined to be likely to store, possess, use, generate, manufacture or dispose of hazardous substances.
Facilities not currently receiving a survey, that have a reportable quantity of a hazardous substance, are required to notify OSFM and complete and submit the HSIS. All substances that have a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) as required by OR-OSHA must be reported if the maximum amount on site at any time meets or exceeds the reportable quantity for the substance.
House Bill 2431 Changed The Law
In December of 2000, the Oregon Community Right to Know and Protection Act changed as a result of House Bill 2431. The change requires Oregon businesses and governmental facilities to notify the OSFM if they have reportable quantities of hazardous substances.
Previously, these facilities were not required to report unless the OSFM sent them a HSIS. This change in the law places the responsibility for identifying facilities that have hazardous substances on the facility owners and operators of Oregon businesses and government agencies. The intent of this change in law is to ensure that facilities in Oregon that use, store, manufacture and/or dispose of hazardous substances are identified and reporting.
What Are The Benefits to Your Facility?
There are a number of benefits related to planning and protection activities that your facility could receive by submitting a Hazardous Substance Information Survey.
These include:
Informed emergency responders in the event of an incident.
Immediate notification of an emergency at your facility.
If reportable quantities are present, responders know how much there is and where it is located. This enables them to respond in a more effective manner.
Representation of your interests during an incident.
Risk reduction concerning property losses.
Increased protection for your facility from neighboring facilities that may have hazardous substances.
The list of 366 "extremely hazardous substances" identified by EPA as having immediate health effects and hazardous properties may serve as a focus for emergency planning, but plans should address all hazardous materials in the community that present risks to public health and safety. These substances are found in some widely used insecticides, herbicides, fertilizers, preservatives, photographic chemicals, and solvents as well as in wastewater treatment and drinking water treatment processes.
The list of extremely hazardous substances includes a "threshold planning quantity" for each substance. If this amount or more of the chemical is present at any manufacturing plant, warehouse, hospital, farm, small business, or other facility, the owner or operator must notify both your state emergency response commission and your local emergency planning coordinator. This lets the planners know what hazardous chemicals are being used and stored in your community.
The facility's owner or operator must also name an employee as "facility coordinator," and that person must participate in your district's planning process.
Facility owners or operators who violate the reporting provisions of this section of the law are subject to civil penalties of up to $25,000 a day for each day a violation continues.
Your LEPC will appoint an information coordinator who will receive and process information as it is submitted to the committee and make it available to the public.
One of the distinctive characteristics of SARA Title III is that an emergency response plan must address these unique characteristics in your community--a fill-in-the-blanks plan will not do this. Since membership on the LEPC is broad-based, your LEPC should be familiar with your community. It should know about the capacities of local hospitals, and about the location of schools nursing homes and other special considerations in the community. It should consider all these factors in developing the emergency response plan.
The LEPC must let you and your neighbors know about the plan by publishing notices and scheduling public meetings, where you will have a chance to comment on the LEPC's activities. Your LEPC must also conduct emergency drills to make sure the plan will work if an accident occurs.
The plan due in October 1988 is the beginning, not the end, of your LEPC's responsibilities. The LEPC must review the plan annually, and as new information becomes available, your district's plan will have to be updated. The LEPC will be a focal point in the community for information on hazardous chemicals.
LEPC meetings will also provide a forum for discussions of how your community should address hazardous situations identified during the planning process.
The SERCs also have continuing responsibilities: they must supervise and coordinate the activities of LEPCs, and they and LEPCs must establish procedures for receiving and processing public requests for information collected under other sections of the new law. They must also review local emergency plans annually to make sure of such things as coordination across the state.
If your SERC and LEPC do their jobs well under this new planning process, your community should be much better prepared to deal with chemical accidents than in the past, and will be better able to make decisions about the presence of chemicals in the community.
Required Elements of a Local Emergency Response Plan
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Use the information provided by industry to identify the facilities and transportation routes where hazardous substances are present.
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Establish emergency response procedures, including evacuation plans, for dealing with accidental chemical releases.
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Set up notification procedures for those who will respond to an emergency.
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Establish methods for determining the occurrence and severity of a release and the areas and populations likely to be affected.
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Establish ways to notify the public of a release.
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Identify the emergency equipment available in the community, including equipment at facilities.
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Contain a program and schedules for training local emergency response and medical workers to respond to chemical emergencies.
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Establish methods and schedules for conducting "exercises" (simulations) to test elements of the emergency response plan.
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Designate a community coordinator and facility coordinators to carry out the plan.
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