What should an environmental emergency response plan include?
Rebecca Eley
What should an environmental emergency response plan include?
If emergencies are to be dealt with effectively and efficiently, they must be planned as much as possible in advance of an incident occuring. Here, we look at some of the elements that need to be prepared so that your environmental emergency response plan is effective.
Whatever the size and nature of the organisation, planning for environmental emergengies should follow similar principles used for fire and other health and safety emergencies.
Team
As a company you need to have an emergency reponse team in place. The team should include:
A designated person to take charge of the incident – this should ideally be a senior member of staff.
A designated person to contact the regulatory bodies and emergency services.
A designated person to contact local residents.
A designated person to handle the press and other media interest.
Designated fire wardens, first aiders and spill kit operators
These designated personnel must have the appropriate training provided by the company or an outside certified provider.
Plan
As a company you must have an effective plan in place to deal with an environmental incident. An emergency plan should contain:
A central location where the plan is held and where incidents will be managed from.
A designated person to take overall charge of any incidents. Other roles and responsibilities also need to be assigned – these members of staff need to be fully trained.
Site plans, must include location of drains and emergency equipment. The location of any sensitive neighbours, such as schools or hospitals and sensitive environmental receptors e.g. local rivers etc. should also be shown on the map.
An upto date inventory of hazardous materials being stored and their locations.
Contact list. This should include contact numbers for; gas, water, electricity suppliers and the environmental regulator (the local office of the Environment Agency).
Details of any emergency warning systems, such as alarms and detectors.
Methods of advising local residents, businesses and any other parties likely to be affected by the incident.
Procedures for dealing with specific accident scenarios. For example, spill kits for hazardous substance spills.
Training needs should be assessed and appropriate training given e.g. fire wardens, spill training etc.
Success
For your environmental response plan to be successful you need to carry out practise drills. These should be based on accident scenarios that could occur on your premises e.g spill training for a warehouse that stores hazradous materials. The testing of the plan should give you confidence in the following areas:
Completeness, consistency and accuracy of the emergency plan and other documentations that are required.
Adequacy of the eqiupment and facilities used.
Competence of staff to carry out the duties assigned to them.
After the drill, a meeting needs to be held with the designated personnel to asses the successfulness of the drill. Any areas of improvement need to be noted and an action plan put into place. You then need to do a retest to make sure these improvements work in practise.
Here at Eley Consultancy Ltd we can assist your business with putting an effective environmental emergency response plan into affect. Please contact us for any of your environmental needs.
