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Facility Response Plan

Introduction

Proper Facility Response Planning can help avoid disaster and save lives. It can be challenging however to know whether planning is necessary for your business and what is required. This Fact File gives a detailed look at what a Facility Response Plan is and the requirements that go along with it. Presented here is applicable information for owners and operators of facilities that store or use oil and regulation expectations for those individuals.

Background

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the Oil Pollution Prevention regulation to prevent oil spills. The regulation was originally published in 1973 under the authority of the Clean Water Act. It helps assure that oil facility employees are prepared to respond if a spill happens. The regulation has two sets of requirements. The first is the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule. The second set of requirements is the Facility Response Plan (FRP) rule. The FRP program is meant to ensure that certain facilities have suitable oil spill response abilities.

What is a Facility Response Plan?

Certain facilities that store and use oil must prepare and submit plans to respond to a worst-case discharge of oil and to a considerable threat of that discharge. FRP is a plan for responding, to the highest extent realistic, to a worse case oil discharge, and to a significant threat of that discharge. Also, the FRP includes responding to small and medium discharges as fitting.

FRPs are very important. They help a facility owner or operator improve discharge prevention measures through early risk identification. Additionally, FRPs assist local and regional response authorities in further understanding potential hazards and response abilities in their location.

If your non-transportation-related facility is SPCC-regulated, and an oil discharge from your facility could sensibly cause substantial harm to the environment from a discharge to navigable waters of this nation or the connecting shoreline, you must prepare an FRP and submit it to the EPA region.

What are the requirements?

As you prepare the FRP, make sure to include the following key elements:

  • Emergency Response Action Plan (ERAP) (easily accessible separate section of the overall plan) including the identity of a qualified person authorized to implement removal activities;
  • Facility name, type, area, owner, and operator information;
  • Emergency notification, equipment, workers, evidence that equipment and workers are accessible (by contract or other permitted means), and evacuation information;
  • Identification and evaluation of possible discharge hazards and prior discharges;
  • Identification of small, medium, and worst-case discharge situations and response activities;
  • Explanation of discharge detection procedures and equipment;
  • Thorough implementation plans for containment and disposal;
  • Facility and response self-inspection; training, exercises, and drills; and meeting logs;
  • Diagrams of facility and adjacent layout, topography, evacuation paths, and drainage flow paths;
  • Security measures, plus fences, lighting, alarms, guards, emergency cutoff valves, and locks; and
  • Response Plan cover sheet (form with basic facility information).

You must review relevant portions of the National Contingency Plan and applicable Area Contingency Plan each year. If needed, revise the FRP to ensure consistency with these plans. Submit the revised parts of the response plan within 60 days of each change that may substantially affect the response to a worst-case discharge.

Maintain the plan at the facility together with plan updates reflecting substantial changes. Records of inspections of response equipment need to be maintained for five years.

Common deficiencies

There are some common deficiencies with the FRP that you can try to avoid. These problems often include the following:

  • The ERAP is not in the plan as a standalone document as it should be.
  • There is improper cross referencing.
  • The evacuation plan found in the ERAP is not complete.
  • The response resource requirements section is not complete or does not exist.
  • Planning distances are not completed correctly.
  • Response resource planning volumes are incorrect.
  • The hazard evaluation section does not reference the tank map.
  • A Discharge Prevention Meeting is not addressed at all.

If you keep this in mind as you make and maintain your plan, you will be better off.

Applicable laws & regulations

40 CFR 110 – Discharge of Oil

40 CFR 112 – Oil Pollution Prevention

Related definitions

“Discharge” means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, or dumping of oil.

“Oil” means oil of any type or in any form, including, but not limited to: fats, oils, or greases of animal, fish, or marine mammal origin; vegetable oils, including oils from seeds, nuts, fruits, or kernels; and, other oils and greases, including petroleum, fuel oil, sludge, synthetic oils, mineral oils, oil refuse, or oil mixed with wastes other than dredged spoil.

“Substantial harm” facility is a facility that, because of its position, could reasonably be expected to cause substantial harm to the environment by discharging oil into or on navigable waters or adjoining shorelines.

Key to remember

When determining if your facility meets reportable discharge criteria for FRPs, ask yourself the following question. Has your facility had a reportable discharge more than or equal to 10,000 gallons within the last five years? If you responded yes to the question, your facility is a substantial harm facility. Therefore, you are required to prepare and submit an FRP. Remember that this is just one of the criteria outlined for substantial harm determination. Use the Flowchart of Criteria for Substantial Harm for fully figuring out substantial harm determination (Appendix C to Part 112).

Real world example

Failure to adhere to the FRP rule can trigger unwanted fines from the EPA. In June 2020, an oil company in Oregon settled an agreement with the EPA regarding violations of the Clean Water Act. An October 2018 inspection found that the company had failed to maintain “Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure” requirements. Specifically, they had failed to update their FRP and had inadequate tank inspections. The facility updated its plan, inspected storage tanks, and agreed to pay a $5,625 penalty. Keep your plans updated and your inspections current to avoid being like that company and facing added costs in the form of penalties.