Wash. Admin. Code § 173-182-710 - Type and frequency of drills
The following drills shall be conducted within each triennial cycle.
| Type of Drill | Frequency Within the Triennial Cycle | Special Instructions | Scheduling Instructions |
| Tabletop drills | 3 - One in each year of the cycle | One of the three shall involve a worst case discharge scenario. The worst case discharge scenario drill shall be conducted once every three years. | Must be scheduled at least 60 days in advance, except the worst case discharge scenario at least 90 days in advance. |
| Deployment drills | 6 - Done two per year | These drills shall include, GRP deployments, testing of each type of equipment to demonstrating compliance with the planning standards. | Scheduled at least 30 days in advance. |
| Ecology initiated unannounced drills | As necessary | This drill may involve testing any component of the plan, including notification procedures, deployment of personnel, boom, recovery and storage equipment and verification of ecology approved alternative vessel speeds. | No notice. |
| ERTV Deployment Drill for covered vessels transiting the Strait of Juan de Fuca | 1 - One in each three year cycle, this is an additional deployment drill unless it is incorporated into a large multiobjective deployment drill. | This drill may involve notifications and tug call out, communications safety, tug demonstration of making up to, stopping, holding, and towing a drifting or disabled vessel and holding position within one hundred feet of another vessel. | Scheduled at least 30 days in advance. |
| Credit for this drill may be achieved from a call out of the tug to a vessel emergency. | |||
| Wildlife Deployment Drill | 1 - One in each three year cycle. This is an additional drill . | This drill will be a deployment of wildlife equipment and wildlife response service provider personnel. | Scheduled at least 90 days in advance. |
| Multiple plan holder large scale equipment deployment drill | 1 - One in each three year cycle. | This drill may involve dedicated and nondedicated equipment, vessels of opportunity, multiple simultaneous tactics, responses to potentially non-floating oils, and the verification of operational readiness over multiple operational periods. | Scheduled at least 90 days in advance. |
(1) Tabletop
drills: Tabletop drills are intended to demonstrate a plan holder's capability
to manage a spill using the incident command system (ICS) and the spill
management team described in the plan. Role playing shall be required in this
drill. During all required tabletop drills plan holders must provide a master
list of equipment and personnel identified to fill both command post and field
operations roles. The master resources list must include:
(a) Worldwide Response Resource List
identification numbers for response resources; and
(b) Personnel names, affiliation, home base
and command post or field role.
(2) Once during each three year cycle, the
plan holder shall ensure that key members of the regional/national "away" team
as identified in the plan shall be mobilized in state for a drill. However, at
ecology's discretion, team members that are out-of-state may be evaluated in
out-of-state tabletop drills if ecology has sufficient notice, an opportunity
to participate in the drill planning process, and provided that the
out-of-state drills are of similar scope and scale to what would have occurred
in state. In this case, key away team members shall be mobilized in this state
at least once every six years.
(3)
Plan holders covering multiple vessels and ecology shall together design a
systematic approach to, over time, involve all spill management teams
identified in WAC
173-182-230(6)(a)
in tabletop and deployment drills as a best practice to demonstrate the
preparedness of enrolled vessel members. These drills will be scheduled by the
plan holder or unannounced to be conducted by ecology, at the discretion of
ecology. These drills may test any plan components but at a minimum will
include notification to the enrolled vessel qualified individual, coordination
of supplemental resources under WAC
173-182-232
and the transition from the plan holder spill management team to the enrolled
vessel company spill management team.
(4) Equipment deployment drills: Plan holders
shall use deployment drills to demonstrate the actions they would take in a
spill, including: Notifications, safety actions, environmental assessment, and
response equipment deployment.
(a) During the
triennial cycle, deployment drills shall include a combination of plan holder
owned assets, contracted PRC assets, nondedicated assets, and vessels of
opportunity.
(b) Plan holders
should ensure that each type of dedicated equipment listed in the plan and
personnel responsible for operating the equipment are tested during each
triennial cycle. Plan holders must design drills that will demonstrate the
ability to meet the planning standards, including recovery systems and system
compatibility and the suitability of the system for the operating environment.
Drills shall be conducted in all operating environments that the plan holder
could impact from spills.
(c) At
least twice during a triennial cycle, plan holders shall deploy a geographic
response plan (GRP) strategy identified within the plan. If no GRPs exist for
the operating area, plan holders will consult with ecology to determine
alternative sensitive areas to protect.
(5) Plan holders may receive credit for
deployment drills conducted by PRCs if:
(a)
The PRC is listed in the plan; and
(b) The plan holder operates in the area,
schedules on the drill calendar, and participates in or observes the
drill.
(6) Additional
large-scale multiple plan holder equipment deployment drill requirement. At
least once every three years all plan holders must participate in a multiple
plan holder large scale equipment deployment exercise. This drill is a test of
the functional ability for multiple contingency plans to be simultaneously
activated in response to a spill. This drill may be incorporated into other
drill requirements to avoid increasing the number of drills and equipment
deployments otherwise required. The exercise location will be selected by
ecology to ensure all plan holders have the opportunity to get credit based on
the areas they operate or transit.
(a) The
exercise will be called once in each of the three regions over the triennial
cycle. All plan holders that operate or transit the region will receive credit.
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(b) At
least one plan holder may be the drill planning lead, participate in all the
planning meetings, and observe the drill.
(c) This deployment may include the following
objectives as applicable to the operating environment:
(i) Demonstration of dedicated and
nondedicated equipment and trained contracted personnel;
(ii) Demonstration of contracted vessel of
opportunity response systems and crew performing operations appropriate to the
vessel capabilities;
(iii)
Demonstration of multiple simultaneous tactics including:
(A) On-water recovery task forces made up of
complete systems which demonstrate storage, recovery, and enhanced
skimming;
(B) Protection task
forces which deploy multiple GRPs;
(C) Vessel and personnel decontamination and
disposal;
(D) Deployment of
contracted aerial assessment assets and aerial observers to direct skimming
operations;
(E) Personnel and
equipment identified for night operations;
(F) Equipment necessary to address situations
where oils, depending on their qualities, weathering, environmental factors,
and methods of discharge, may submerge and sink;
(G) Equipment and personnel to conduct
monitoring and deterrence operations to prevent whales, which may include
southern resident killer whales, from encountering spilled oil; and
(H) Verification of the operational readiness
during both the first six hours of a spill and over multiple operational
periods.
(7) Additional deployment requirement for
vessel plan holders with contracted access to the ERTV. Once every three years
plan holders with contracted access to the ERTV must cosponsor a drill that
includes deployment of the ERTV, unless ERTV drill credit has already been
received under WAC
173-182-242(2).
This drill must be scheduled on the area exercise calendar. The drill shall
include at a minimum:
(a) Notifications and
tug call out;
(b) Safety and
environmental assessment;
(c)
Demonstration of making up to, stopping, holding, and towing a drifting or
disabled vessel;
(d) Demonstration
of the capability to hold position within one hundred feet of another vessel;
and
(e) Communications.
(8) Additional deployment
requirement for all plan holders. Once every three years, plan holders must
deploy wildlife response equipment and personnel. This is an additional
deployment drill.
(9) For all plan
holders, ecology may initiate scheduled inspections and unannounced deployment
and tabletop drills.
(a) In addition to the
drills listed above, ecology will implement a systematic scheduled inspection
and unannounced drill program to survey, assess, verify, inspect or deploy
response equipment listed in the plan. This program will be conducted in a way
so that no less than fifty percent of the resources will be confirmed during
the first triennial cycle, and the remaining fifty percent during the
subsequent triennial cycle.
(b)
Unannounced drills may be initiated by ecology when specific problems are noted
with individual plan holders, or randomly, to strategically ensure that all
operating environments, personnel and equipment readiness have been adequately
tested.
(c) Unannounced
notification drills are designed to test the ability to follow the notification
and call-out process in the plan.
(d) Immediately prior to the start of an
unannounced deployment or tabletop drill, plan holders will be notified in
writing of the drill objectives, expectations and scenario.
(e) Plan holders may request to be excused if
conducting the drill poses an unreasonable safety or environmental risk, or
significant economic hardship. If the plan holder is excused, ecology will
conduct an unannounced drill at a future time.
Notes
Statutory Authority: Chapters 88.46, 90.48, 90.56 RCW, and
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