Integrated contingency planning: The one plan approach to facility response plans

Facility operators face myriad federal, state, and local emergency response planning requirements. The traditional approach to satisfying these requirements has been to develop separate plans for each set of regulations. Guidance recently published by the National Response Team (NRT) offers an efficient format for combining planning criteria into one effective decrement that will be readily accepted by regulatory authorities. The NRT is composed of 15 federal agencies identified in Subpart B of the National Contingency Plan as having responsibility for federal environmental emergency response. The "One Plan" format avoids unnecessary duplication of effort and offers significant rime, paper and dollar savings. It also promotes an all-incident approach to response planning across facility divisions.