ASSESSING FACILITY-SPECIFIC RISK: A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

ABSTRACT It's been six years since the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Most facilities and regulatory agencies are just now beginning to reflect upon their initial efforts to develop and review facility response plans. The plan reviews and inspections conducted to date within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region VI area have identified some common deficiencies. The most prominent and common are the facilities’ planning efforts relative to risk. OPA 90 required facilities to assess spill events under adverse weather conditions. Unfortunately, most plans were prepared with the intent to meet a regulatory deadline and not necessarily to properly reflect specific risk. This paper will seek to identify the varying risks posed to each facility within Region VI. The following is a list of adverse weather conditions and phenomena that will be examined throughout the region and applied to specific categories of facilities: fire, lightning, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, hail and severe storms, rainfall, drought, floods, temperature extremes, soil corrosivity, and groundwater protection. After the review is completed, facilities will be grouped by their specific hazard and their most probable risk.