3.1 Chemical Risk Assessment

A locally-tailored chemical risk assessment will help focus community-wide preparedness activities toward the higher-risk scenarios and inform the community’s future preparedness investments (e.g., technology and medical countermeasures). Such a risk assessment may begin with existing site-level and broader community-based all-hazards risk assessments, layered with the identification of potential chemical release sites and associated areas and populations at risk. Release sites may include chemical manufacturing plants, factories, pipelines, railways, and agricultural sites/facilities, among others. Chemicals and sites posing release risks can be recognized based on their hazardous properties inventory volumes as well as by the site’s attractiveness to malicious actors of various types. Protective actions for the release site and surrounding areas can be informed with this knowledge.

Under the auspices of the EPA, data are made available by law to provide chemical risk information useful for planning; many of these datasets are available freely online and can be downloaded for ingestion into a jurisdictions’ systems like ArcGIS. In fact, most LEPCs/TEPCs and SERCs/TERCs will have used such data to guide their planning and preparedness activities. In addition to these resources, local planners can leverage the jurisdiction’s contributions to the community Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) and Stakeholder Preparedness Review (SPR) risk assessment processes conducted according to FEMA guidance will both enhance its risk assessment efforts and strengthen jurisdictional grant applications and justifications for investment in preparedness.

Refer To

The 16 federal agencies of the National Response Team produced the NRT-1 guidance to help communities prepare for incidents involving hazardous materials. NRT-1 describes how to form a local planning team, find a team leader, identify and analyze hazards, identify existing response equipment and personnel, write a plan, and keep a plan up-to-date.

Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986)

The EPCRA was created to help communities plan for chemical emergencies. It requires industry to report on the storage, use and releases of hazardous substances to federal and SLTT governments, and requires SLTT governments to use this information to prepare for and protect their communities from potential risks. EPCRA-mandated planning and preparedness infrastructure at the state and local levels includes SERCs, TERCs, LEPCs, and TEPCs.

Oil Pollution Act (OPA) (a 1990 amendment of the Clean Water Act)

The OPA includes national planning and preparedness provisions for oil spills that are similar to EPCRA provisions for extremely hazardous substances. Plans are developed at the local, state, and federal levels. The OPA plans offer an opportunity for LEPCs to coordinate their plans with area plans and with local facility oil spill plans (Facility Response Plans, FRPs).

Clean Air Act Amendments (1990)

The Clean Air Act Amendments require the EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue regulations for chemical accident prevention. Facilities that have certain chemicals in quantities above specified thresholds are required to develop a risk management program to identify and evaluate hazards and manage those hazards safely; facilities subject to EPA’s Chemical Accident Prevention regulations must submit a risk management plan (RMP).

Community Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment

The community THIRA is a three-step risk assessment process that helps communities understand their risks and what they need to do to address those risks by answering the following questions:

What threats and hazards can affect our community?
If they occurred, what impacts would those threats and hazards have on our community?
Based on those impacts, what capabilities should our community have?

Stakeholder Preparedness Review

The SPR is a self-assessment of a jurisdiction’s current capability levels against the targets identified in the THIRA. Jurisdictions identify their current capability and how that capability changed over the last year, including capabilities lost, sustained, and gained. Jurisdictions also identify capability gaps related to planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercises, and indicate their intended approaches to address those gaps while maintaining their current capabilities. In addition, jurisdictions identify how FEMA preparedness grants helped to build or sustain capabilities.

Local chemical industries will also have performed their own risk assessments for their operations and facilities. Additionally, many facilities are required by EPA regulations to develop a risk management plan (RMP). Jurisdictions should take advantage of any additional information they can gain from such plans when developing their own response plans. For example, the chemical sector can and often will rely on private sector response teams such as CHEMTREC®^[1] to provide them with information, guidance, and response support during chemical incidents. Knowing which chemical facilities/transporters in the area plan for assistance from these kinds of private response entities will aid the jurisdiction in assessing their risk and further response needs.

Footnotes

1. CHEMTREC® is a registered service mark of the American Chemistry Council, Inc.