Wash. Admin. Code § 173-182-710

Current through Register Vol. 24-23, December 1, 2024

Section 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.

Click here to view image

(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.

Wash. Admin. Code § 173-182-710

Amended by WSR 16-21-046, Filed 10/12/2016, effective 11/12/2016

Amended by WSR 20-01-165, Filed 12/18/2019, effective 1/18/2020

Statutory Authority: Chapters 88.46, 90.48, 90.56 RCW, and 2011 c 122 . 13-01-054 (Order 11-06), § 173-182-710, filed 12/14/12, effective 1/14/13. Statutory Authority: Chapters 88.46, 90.56, and 90.48 RCW. 06-20-035 (Order 00-03), § 173-182-710, filed 9/25/06, effective 10/26/06.