UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON D.C. 20460
OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR
SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD
October 24, 2008
EPA-SAB-09-002
The Honorable Stephen L. Johnson
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Subject: SAB Advisory Report "Preparing for Environmental Disasters"
Dear Administrator Johnson:
I am pleased to send to you a self-initiated Advisory Report of the EPA Science
Advisory Board (SAB) titled "Preparing for Environmental Disasters." Our primary
motivation in this effort has been to help the Agency become less reactive and more
anticipatory and to think more broadly about how it identifies and assesses possible future
large-scale environmental disasters and develops plans for responding to and
communicating about them.
EPA's statutory responsibilities in such settings are limited, and in the context of an
environmental disaster, "that's not my department" is not a satisfactory answer to a
concerned general public that will look at the Agency's name and expect it to take a wider
range of responsibilities than it is likely to actually have. The public may not understand,
or in the face of a major environmental disaster care very much, about the intricacies of
bureaucratic or political constraints. Thus, they may blame EPA for the shortcomings of
others.
It is very much in the Agency's interest to assure that preparations for possible
future disasters have been well developed and that there are not gaps in responsibility or
response. While it is clear that the Agency has already undertaken extensive preparations
to deal with a range of specific environmental disasters, we also recommend that EPA also
invest modest additional resources in some broader efforts.
To this end the SAB recommends that the EPA establish a small interdisciplinary
Environmental Disaster Assessment Team of five to seven professionals who are charged
with identifying, prioritizing and assessing potential environmental disasters. This team
should develop a system to identify potential environmental disasters, prioritize them
based on probability and consequence, and identify common attributes and response
strategies that could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of agency responses.
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In addition, the proposed Environmental Disaster Assessment Team should
perform, or arrange for others to perform, reasonably comprehensive assessments of those
disasters deemed to be of greatest concern. It should then help and advise the Agency to
fully: 1) identify gaps in coverage by Federal, State and Local authorities and needs for
improved coverage, coordination and preplanning; 2) develop prior arrangements with
experts and organizations who can provided the needed knowledge and skills and develop
a geo-coded list of this expertise so that these connections can be made rapidly in an
emergency; and 3) identify short term waivers to regulations that might be needed and
prearranged mechanisms to achieve these waivers in a way that balances efficiency with
protection and other objectives.
In undertaking this self-initiated study, one of the first steps the SAB took was to
invite a set of briefings from a range of organizations that have extensive experience in
dealing with a wide variety of environmental disasters. We did this because we wanted to
see if there were general lessons to be drawn that might be relevant to the EPA's needs, and
because we wanted to get ourselves "grounded" in examples of a number of real events so
that our deliberations would not be too abstract.
From these examples we concluded that the Agency would be well advised to more
systematically examine and seek to learn from the best practices of other public and private
organizations. In so doing, it should seek strategies by which it, and other responsible
parties, might better:
1) anticipate, assess, plan for, and practice responses to deal with major events
that plausibly might occur in coming years;
2) learn rapidly what is going on and developing a rapid and rough sense of what
risks may exist to people and the environment;
3) effectively coordinate and communicate with other key players including first
responders and the public;
4) respond with flexibility to the specific needs and circumstances of the event at
hand, including the ability to adapt procedures and make real-time decisions
when previous plans are not working;
5) delegate decision authority to responsible individuals in the field; and
6) mobilize personnel and resources in a rapid and orderly way.
Beyond these general recommendations the report makes a number of more specific
recommendations, many of which should help to improve EPA's capacity in the
emergency response program.
The SAB recommends that the EPA compile an inventory of existing models, tools,
data and resources, including those that, while developed for other purposes, might be
made useful for disaster response; perform a comprehensive assessment and develop a
report on the gaps in the available resource systems; solicit feedback from users of these
tools, particularly local and state personnel and regional EPA managers, regarding resource
systems; and identify further development and research needs.
The SAB recognizes that field measurements made during the early stages of a
disaster have a different purpose than field measurements made for long-term monitoring
and remediation. Emergency responders and citizens need fast order-of-magnitude
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indications of the nature and level of hazards they may face. Accordingly instrumentation,
quality assurance procedures for authorizing the release of data, and measurement
priorities should be designed to appropriately meet those needs. While recognizing the
progress that has been made in the development of the Environmental Response
Laboratory Network, the report recommends that the agency pay additional attention to
developing procedures for rapid field measurement, data analysis and data release during
the early stages of emergencies, as well as protocols for how those procedures will be
modified to assure greater precision and quality control as needed in later stages of the life-
cycle of an environmental disaster.
The report makes a variety of other more specific recommendations related to tools
for data display and analysis, documentation of decisions, routine post-hoc performance
audits, and improving communication.
In this latter context, the report notes that virtually all of the Agency's work in
communication with the general public lacks a key empirical foundation. To correct this
deficiency, the SAB recommends that the Agency reinvigorate its program in behavioral
social science application and research, perhaps by reestablishing the very successful
collaboration it once had with National Science Foundation's Decision Research and
Management Science program. This should include a strong program in empirically based
methods of risk communication as well as development, demonstration and evaluation of
mechanisms for better including public values and preferences in post-disaster clean-up
decisions.
Clearly the SAB is not the right organization to develop detailed operational plans to
deal with environmental disasters. Rather, it is our hope that by taking a fresh independent
look, this report may persuade the Agency to begin to add to its current activities the kind
of broader, more anticipatory approach we believe is needed.
In the future, once the agency has developed a broader planning process and plans,
the SAB would be happy to provide thoughtful expert reviews and advice on the technical
and behavioral dimensions of those processes and plans.
Sincerely,
/Signed/
Dr. M. Granger Morgan
Chair
U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board
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NOTICE
This report has been written as part of the activities of the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB), a
public advisory group providing extramural scientific information and advice to the Administrator
and other officials of the Environmental Protection Agency. The SAB is structured to provide
balanced, expert assessment of scientific matters related to problems facing the Agency. This
report has not been reviewed for approval by the Agency and, hence, the contents of this report do
not necessarily represent the views and policies of the Environmental Protection Agency, nor of
other agencies in the Executive Branch of the Federal government, nor does mention of trade
names of commercial products constitute a recommendation for use. Reports of the SAB are
posted on the EPA website at http://www.epa.gov/sab.
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Science Advisory Board*
CHAIR
Dr. M. Granger Morgan, Lord Chair Professor in Engineering, Department of
Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
SAB MEMBERS
Dr. Gregory Biddinger, Coordinator, Natural Land Management Programs, Toxicology
and Environmental Sciences, ExxonMobil Biomedical Sciences, Inc., Houston, TX
Dr. Thomas Burke, Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Dr. James Bus, Director of External Technology, Toxicology and Environmental
Research and Consulting, The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI
Dr. Deborah Cory-Slechta, Professor, Department of Environmental Medicine, School of
Medicine and Dentistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Dr. Maureen L. Cropper, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Maryland,
College Park, MD
Dr. Virginia Dale, Corporate Fellow, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN
Dr. Kenneth Dickson, Regents Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University
of North Texas, Aubrey, TX
Dr. David A. Dzombak, Walter J. Blenko Sr. Professor of Environmental Engineering,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Carnegie
Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Dr. Baruch Fischhoff, Howard Heinz University Professor, Department of Social and
Decision Sciences, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA
Dr. James Galloway, Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Dr. James K. Hammitt, Professor, Center for Risk Analysis, Harvard University, Boston,
MA
*This roster reflects the SAB membership during 2007 and 2008 when the activity was
conducted.
11
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Dr. Rogene Henderson, Senior Scientist Emeritus, Lovelace Respiratory Research
Institute, Albuquerque, NM
Dr. James H. Johnson, Professor and Dean, College of Engineering, Architecture &
Computer Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC
Dr. Bernd Kahn, Professor Emeritus and Director, Environmental Radiation Center,
Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,
GA
Dr. Agnes Kane, Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine,
Brown University, Providence, RI
Dr. Meryl Karol, Professor Emerita, Graduate School of Public Health, University of
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Dr. Catherine Kling, Professor, Department of Economics, Iowa State University, Ames,
IA
Dr. George Lambert, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Director, Center for Childhood
Neurotoxicology, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School-UMDNJ, Belle Mead, NJ
Dr. Jill Lipoti, Director, Division of Environmental Safety and Health, New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection, Trenton, NJ
Dr. Michael J. McFarland, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, UT
Dr. Judith L. Meyer, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, University of Georgia,
Lopez Island, WA
Dr. Jana Milford, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
Dr. Rebecca Parkin, Professor and Associate Dean, Environmental and Occupational
Health, School of Public Health and Health Services, The George Washington University
Medical Center, Washington, DC
Mr. David Rejeski, Director, Foresight and Governance Project, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC
Dr. Stephen M. Roberts, Professor, Department of Physiological Sciences, Director,
Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Dr. Joan B. Rose, Professor and Homer Nowlin Chair for Water Research, Department of
Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
in
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Dr. James Sanders, Director and Professor, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography,
Savannah, GA
Dr. Jerald Schnoor, Allen S. Henry Chair Professor, Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, Co-Director, Center for Global and Regional Environmental
Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Dr. Kathleen Segerson, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut,
Storrs, CT
Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette, O'Neil Professor of Philosophy, Department of Biological
Sciences and Philosophy Department, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
Dr. V. Kerry Smith, W.P. Carey Professor of Economics , Department of Economics ,
W.P Carey School of Business , Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Dr. Deborah Swackhamer, Interim Director and Professor, Institute on the Environment,
University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
Dr. Thomas L. Theis, Director, Institute for Environmental Science and Policy,
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Dr. Valerie Thomas, Anderson Interface Associate Professor, School of Industrial and
Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Dr. Barton H. (Buzz) Thompson, Jr., Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources
Law at the Stanford Law School and Director, Woods Institute for the Environment
Director, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Dr. Robert Twiss, Professor Emeritus, University of California-Berkeley, Ross, C A
Dr. Lauren Zeise, Chief, Reproductive and Cancer Hazard Assessment Branch, Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, California Environmental Protection Agency,
Oakland, CA
LIAISONS
Dr. Steven Heeringa, (FIFRA SAP), Research Scientist and Director, Statistical Design Group,
Institute for Social Research (ISR), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Dr. Melanie Marty, (CHPAC Chair), Chief, Air Toxicology and Epidemiology Branch, Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, California EPA, Oakland, CA
SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD STAFF
Mr. Thomas Miller, Designated Federal Officer, EPA SAB, Washington, DC
IV
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Table of Contents
SAB Advisory Report: Preparing for Environmental Disasters
1. Background 1
2. Learning from Others 2
3. Identifying a Range of Potential Environmental Disasters 4
4. Geographically Specific Tools for Data Display, Analysis and Decision Support 7
5. QA/QC for Data During Emergencies 11
6. Improved Communication and Public Consultation 11
7. Summary and Restatement of Key Recommendations 14
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SAB Advisory Report: Preparing for Environmental Disasters
1. Background
Even with improved preparation and careful advanced preventive actions,
occasional environmental disasters are inevitable. They will arise from natural events,
such as storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions that have significant human and
environmental impacts (SAB, 1995, 1999). Unfortunately they may also result from
accidental or intentional human events, such as large spills, structural collapse, facility
explosions or terrorist attacks.
When disasters with large environmental consequences occur, the public naturally
looks to EPA to play a central role in characterizing environmental impacts, protecting
human health and ecosystems, and in coordinating and overseeing post disaster clean-up.
However, EPA's authority covers only a subset of the issues that may arise in an
environmental disaster (See Box 1, Appendix A). These include protection of drinking
water supplies, the cleanup of contaminated buildings, and the development of a
nationwide laboratory network to support response. EPA has developed an Emergency
Response Business Plan1 and continues to work hard to prepare for those aspects of
disasters for which it has responsibility, following the general framework laid out in the
National Response Framework (see Figure 1, Appendix A)
Other federal, state, and local agencies have primary responsibility for other aspects
of dealing with environmental disasters, including First Response. When the scale of a
disaster is large, or especially politically salient, senior political leaders also become
involved. In such situations, EPA has found itself buffeted by forces over which it has
little or no control or authority. At the same time, the public may not understand, or in the
face of a disaster care very much, about the intricacies of bureaucratic or political
constraints and blame EPA for the shortcomings of others.
While no one can predict the future, we believe that it should be possible to
identify, at least in general terms, the range of large-scale environmental disasters that
could plausibly arise from natural causes (earthquakes, hurricanes), accidents (accidental
explosions, structural collapse) and terrorist events. The EPA has already done some of
this, partly in response to previous SAB investigations and recommendations (SAB, 1995,
1999). However, in crisis situations large organizations are rarely capable of rapid
innovation. Rather, they respond with previously developed "standard operating
procedures" (Allison and Zelikow, 1999). As a result, if EPA is to improve its response to
future large-scale environmental disasters it must have performed needed research and
developed plans in anticipation of the range of plausible contingencies. At least as
important, Agency personnel must have practiced and refined these plans in "table-top" or
lrThe Emergency Response Business Plan is designed to facilitate readiness to deal with five simultaneous
incidents of national significance (INS) while also maintaining effective "day-to-day" capabilities.
1
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other exercises that address both the risks and the likely complex institutional setting in
which the Agency will likely have to execute its plans. The agency has already been doing
these things for those aspects of a number of potential environmental disasters for which it
has statutory authority. This report recommends that the Agency expand the range of those
activities and invest modest resources in some broader efforts to scope and prioritize
potential disasters with large environmental consequences. Indeed, if it does this well,
EPA may even be able to assist other government and private sector entities to identify
gaps and blind spots in their current thinking and improve their current preparation and
response plans.
The purpose of this SAB self-initiated study has been to stimulate the agency to
become less reactive and more anticipatory and to think more broadly about how it
identifies and assesses possible future large-scale environmental disasters and develops
plans for responding to and communicating about them. Clearly, the SAB is not the right
organization to develop detailed operational plans. Rather, it is our hope that by taking a
fresh independent look at the problem, and building on previous SAB efforts on the topic
of preparedness for environmental disasters (SAB, 1995, 1999) we can persuade the
Agency to begin to adopt the kind of broader, more anticipatory approach we believe is
needed. In the future, once the agency has developed a broader planning process and
plans, the Science Advisory Board would be happy to provide thoughtful expert reviews
and advice on the technical and behavioral dimensions of those processes and plans.
The Board would like to recognize and thank Agency staff for its insights, critical
commentary, and assistance in this effort.
2. Learning from Others
In undertaking this self-initiated study, one of the first steps the SAB took was to
invite a set of briefings from a range of organizations that have extensive experience in
dealing with a wide variety of environmental disasters. This was done for two reasons: a)
because the SAB wanted to see if there were general lessons to be drawn that might be
relevant to the EPA's needs; and, b) because the SAB wanted to get itself "grounded" in
examples of a number of real events so that our deliberations would not be too abstract.
People who graciously shared their time and experiences in disaster prevention and
management with the SAB over the course of the study are listed in Appendix B to this
report. In reviewing the most successful of the efforts the SAB identified a number of
themes and approaches that it believes will likely be common to any effort to deal
effectively with environmental disasters. These include:
1) Anticipating, assessing, planning and practicing to deal with events that can
reasonably be anticipated to occur. When this is done, previously developed
operational and communication plans, trained personnel, and previously identified
instrumentation and materials can all be rapidly and efficiently brought to bear on
the problem.
2) Learning rapidly about what is going on and developing a rapid and rough sense of
what risks may exist to people and the environment. This means, for example, that
field measurements made in the early stages of a disaster should probably be
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designed quite differently (different instruments, quality assurance, etc.) than
measurements that are made for long-term monitoring and remediation. It means
that one needs to have access to and prior experience with appropriate fast
modeling and monitoring tools. It also means that with some prior geo-coded
inventories of what materials (sewage, chemical stores, etc.) might be available for
release during a disaster one should be able to anticipate some aspect of likely
exposures, and the consequent measurement and modeling needs.
3) Communication with the general public and with non-technical decision makers in
a meaningful way. There is clear empirical evidence that such communication will
be much more effective if it is based on the prior development and iterative
empirical testing of at least the kernels of key messages and disseminated by
trusted organizations or individuals. There is also clear evidence that helping
people figure out what numbers mean, what their choices are, and what they should
do to protect themselves, their children, their employees, and the environment, are
all critical.
4) Coordination and communication with other key players. EPA has specific
statutory responsibilities in terms of what it is and is not responsible for. However,
in the context of an environmental emergency, "that's not my department" is not a
satisfactory answer. The general public is likely to look at the Agency's name and
expect it to take a wider range of responsibilities than it is likely to actually have.
In order to avoid serious misunderstanding and inadequate response, there clearly
needs to be coordination in both message and action. The SAB saw the briefings it
received as strongly suggesting that such coordination and effective communication
would almost certainly not happen unless there are pre-developed plans and
messages that have been developed and rehearsed among relevant parties.
5) Flexibility, including the ability to adapt procedures and make real-time decisions
when previous plans are not working. It was clear from the briefings that the most
successful private organizations the SAB heard from have been very good at
identifying strategies that are not working and making improvement rapidly.
Figuring out how to replicate this ability to adopt an iterative approach in federal
agencies clearly presents challenges that need to be addressed.
6) Delegation to folks in the field, and the willingness of senior management to back
their decisions, was another characteristic of the successful private organizations
the SAB heard from. Again, figuring out how to replicate this capability in Federal
agencies clearly presents challenges that need to be addressed.
7) Mobilization of personnel and resources in a rapid and orderly way was a
characteristic of the successful private organizations the SAB heard from. In the
case of EPA, there is considerable expertise across the agency, including its
laboratories, which might be mobilized if there were adequate prior planning,
training and rehearsal. How much of this has already occurred is not clear to the
SAB.
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The SAB recommends that as EPA works to improve the way in which it identifies,
assesses, prepares for, and responds to possible future environmental disasters, it
should examine and seek to learn from the best practices of other public and private
organizations.
3. Identifying a Range of Potential Environmental Disasters
There is no way to know the future. Some enormous but imaginable environmental
disasters, such as the impact of a large meteorite, or a continental-scale lava flow, are of
such low probability that it would make little sense for EPA, with its limited resources and
large set of obligations, to spend time thinking very much about them (Smil, 2008). Other
environmental disasters will be sufficiently small or local in extent that it is unlikely that
EPA would become involved. However, there are other regularly occurring environmental
disasters, such as floods and hurricanes that have significant human health and
environmental impacts (SAB, 1995, 1999).
When Agency staff think about environmental disasters, typically, they start with
one of the 15 DHS National Planning Scenarios2 and the Agency's authorities (Box 1,
Appendix A) and go from there. While this is appropriate, the committee believes that it
would also be wise for the Agency to develop a systematic taxonomy of plausible events
and plausible combinations of events3, ask what would be the environmental consequences
of each, and then in a systematic way, starting with those whose consequences are
potentially most serious, ask:
• what agencies would deal with the various consequences?
• what responses and coordination would be needed?
• where are the gaps in authority and expertise?
• what other parties are likely to have key roles?
• what if any short term waivers to regulations and other rules might be
needed and what mechanisms are needed to achieve these in a way that
balances efficiency with protection and other objectives?
• what needs to be done to facilitate good coordination within EPA, with
other Federal Agencies, with state and local government, and with the
private sector?
• where are there commonalties across different types of environmental
disasters that could be exploited to develop more efficient and effective
response plans? and
• what would the public expect of the EPA?
A very simple illustration of how such a taxonomy might be developed is provided
in Table 1 (see Appendix A). Other structures are also possible. The key point is to first
EPA is an active participant in the DHS-coordinated Incident Planning Management Team (IMPT), which,
among other activities, is conducting detailed panning related to the National Planning Scenarios. Note that
all of the scenarios involving chemical releases involve "attacks." While these events could be extremely
dangerous, so too could a wide range of accidental releases. The latter may actually be more likely.
3By combinations of events we mean things such as a large earthquake combined with wildfires, a
consideration of whether key infrastructures such as power and communication continue to operate, or
whether there are cross linkages between infrastructures (e.g. power available to run compressor stations in
natural gas supply systems or to run pumps in water and sewer systems), etc.
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develop some way to think systematically about the full range of plausible disasters the
Agency might be called upon to address.
The entries in Table 1 are still abstract. The next step, once a taxonomy of this sort
is developed, is to select a range of specific events and think through their consequences.
Suppose, for example, that a major volcanic event was to occur in the Pacific Northwest -
essentially a larger scale version of the Mt. St. Helens eruption but with impacts that
extend to a number of population centers such as Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, or the
Portland area. Clearly, such an event could have a large number of consequences. In
Addition, to wide-spread devastation of precious terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and
forest resources, there could be extensive loss of life, widespread destruction of built
property, and disruptions of critical infrastructures, such as power supply, communication,
roads and water. One way to explore these would be to build a set of "influence diagrams"
that trace out various causal chains. Figure 2 (see Appendix A) shows a highly simplified
example of the impacts that such an event might have on the sustained contamination of a
water supply.
Figure 3 (see Appendix A) presents an illustrative time line for pre- and post-event
planning and action. The main features of pre-event analysis include: identifying likely
measurement needs; developing measurement tools and protocols, and risk analysis and
consequence analysis tools; identifying likely communication needs and developing pre-
tested communication modules that can be modified once the specifics of an event are
known; identifying issues of jurisdiction/coordination; planning for longer term
remediation needs; and identifying and implementing mitigating actions and strategies that
could reduce or eliminate risks. Illustrations of a few post-event actions are shown on the
right hand side of Figure 3.
Over the course of the past two years, the SAB has had occasion to review a
number of geographical information systems being developed by different regional EPA
offices. If these efforts were better coordinated, the result could be a very useful tool for
pre-event analysis to identify and assess the various facilities that could result in sources of
difficulty (such as chemical or other contamination). The availability of such a system or
systems could also prove invaluable during the actual management of an event once it had
happened.
Clearly, developing such assessments will take time and care. The agency will not
be able to do this for a large number of potential natural, accidental and terrorist-caused
disasters all at once. Accordingly,
the SAB recommends that the EPA establish a small interdisciplinary
Environmental Disaster Assessment Team of five to seven fulltime
professionals who are charged with working across the agency to identify,
prioritize and assess potential environmental disasters.
We believe that with the right people, resources, and mandate, such a group could
make very substantial progress in just a few years. After developing a taxonomy of
possible risk events, and working up a modest number of example assessments, such a
group could then use these results as a basis to consult with Regional Offices, The National
Homeland Security Research Center, key mission offices across the Agency, and the
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Agency's Office of Research and Development, in order to set priorities across potential
disaster scenarios (some of which would be generic in nature, some of which, like
earthquakes or volcanic events, would be specific to geographical regions). As the work of
such a small assessment team progressed, they would certainly find many situations in
which the same sequences and responses apply across many different events and
contingencies.
EPA does not have a mandate to deal with all aspects of environmental disasters.
Indeed, in many cases, the legal mandate is limited to only a modest sub-set of all the
issues that may arise. However,
the SAB recommends that the small Environmental Disaster Assessment Team
recommended above start by prioritizing a systematically developed list of
potential disasters and then that it perform, or arrange for others to perform, a
reasonably comprehensive assessment of those that are deemed to be of greatest
concern.
The SAB makes this recommendation for three reasons. First, without such a
comprehensive anticipatory approach, the EPA runs a high risk of finding itself unprepared
and playing catch-up in the face of future environmental disasters. Second, without such
an approach, coordination with other Agencies may be spotty. Finally, without such a
systematic approach, eventualities will likely arise in which no clear preparation has been
made by any Federal agency to deal with at least some aspect of an acute environmental
problem and, even if EPA's mission does not encompass that contingency, the public will
likely look to the Agency for leadership, or blame the Agency for an inadequate response.
Of course, there are others at EPA's Homeland Security Research Center, EPA
ORD, regional EPA offices, in DHS research centers, at Department of Energy National
Labs, in universities, and in other research and operational entities, who have done
portions of such assessments. Clearly, the proposed Environmental Disaster Assessment
Team should build upon the prior work of such groups as it proceeds with this effort.
Having put in place an ongoing process to perform such assessments (starting with
the highest priority issues), the Agency will be in a much better position to:
• prepare and practice response plans for a range of high probability events;
• identify likely gaps in expertise and develop prior arrangements with experts and
organizations who can provide the needed knowledge and skills;
• develop a geo-coded list of this expertise so that these connections can be made
rapidly in an emergency;
• identify short term waivers to regulations and other rules that might be needed and
prearrange mechanisms to achieve these waivers in a way that balances efficiency
with protection and other objectives;
• develop and pre-test public communications messages, that can be easily modified
to meet the specific needs of different contexts, to deal with those events;
• engage in coordination activities with other Federal, State and private parties; and
• develop measurement and quality assurance protocols that will allow rapid
dissemination and use of field measurements in the early stages of a disaster.
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While the Agency is already doing many of these things in the context of specific risk
scenarios and legislative authority, the SAB believes that great benefit could be obtained
from a parallel effort that adopts a more holistic and comprehensive approach of the sort
outlined.
4. Geographically Specific Tools for Data Display, Analysis and Decision Support
In this and the following section, we turn to a more detailed set of issues, some of
which relate to the small Environmental Disaster Assessment Team proposed in Section 3,
but most of which are more relevant to the ongoing work of the EPA emergency response
program.
Assessing potential future disasters, planning for response, and executing an
effective response once a disaster has occurred, all require information and modeling and
analysis capabilities at a variety of scales (local, regional, and national). Local first
responders such as fire, emergency services, or police, can respond and routinely are first
to address the immediate needs created by small local disasters. However, as the spatial
scale of the disaster increases additional resources, information and tools are needed to
respond and address the consequences of the disaster.
EPA has developed a variety of spatial analysis tools incorporating geographic
information systems (GIS) and fate and transport models that, while developed for other
purposes, could be made applicable to the needs of emergency responders by providing
information helpful in identifying vulnerable populations and environmental resources at
the state, regional, and national scales. These tools incorporate GIS data layers such as
land use, infrastructure, location of chemical storage facilities, industrial facilities, human
census tract data, sensitive environmental and public health receptors, and a myriad of
other spatially explicit databases into decision support systems. EPA has also developed
and uses transport and fate models capable of estimating the dispersion of chemicals,
particles, microorganisms, and radiation released by a disaster into the air and water. If
modified for use in disaster setting, some of these tools could be particularly valuable for
disaster managers responding to incidents at the regional scale. The following paragraphs
provide details on a number of salient issues.
a) Models, Tools, and Resources. Maximum preparedness for short- and long-term
emergency response actions requires development and maintenance and
deployment of a variety of models, tools and other resources (resource systems).
Consultations by EPA with SAB and Homeland Security Advisory Committee
(HSAC) have addressed specific elements of this overall system resource
portfolio but have not provided the overall context for SAB and SAB's
Homeland Security Advisory Committee (HSAC) consideration of these
reviews.
The SAB recommends that EPA compile an inventory of existing
models, tools and resources, including those that, while developed for
other purposes, might be made useful for disaster response.
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Once these "assets" have been listed (including applicable assets from other
agencies) they should be mapped against the list of disasters identified in National
Planning Scenarios and by the proposed Environmental Disaster Assessment Team
and their applicability to each should be established. EPA has special expertise in
risk assessment of building disasters and building decontamination, water and
wastewater infrastructure assessment, surface water and groundwater quality
modeling, air quality modeling, emission locations and databases, municipal and
industrial site locations, and ecological risk assessment. EPA tools may be
especially useful in decision support for certain types of disaster response, and
these applications should be identified a priori.
One example where this may already have happened is the Water Security
Initiative (WSI), successor to the Water Sentinel Model that EPA developed for
assessing the vulnerability of water distribution systems under various
contamination scenarios. WSI consists of models and other tools to provide:
enhanced physical security monitoring; water quality monitoring; routine and
triggered sampling of high priority contaminants; public health surveillance; and,
consumer complaint surveillance.
b) Identification of Gaps and Prioritization of Research Needs. Following
completion of such an inventory of models and other tools,
The SAB recommends a comprehensive assessment and report of the
gaps in the available resource systems, and a listing of needs for further
development and research.
The list of gaps in the resource system inventory should be prioritized. This
prioritization process should consider the environmental and human health
consequences caused by missing tools or information, the impacts of related
consequences (including spatial and temporal scales), and other relevant criteria.
This analysis should enable optimization of the allocation of EPA resources to fill
these gaps over the short-, intermediate- and long-term.
The SAB recommends that the listing of development and research
needs (identified in the gap analysis) be prioritized and conveyed across
the Agency.
Once gaps and research needs have been identified, the SAB would be pleased to
review the results and offer its advice.
c) Characteristics of Models, Tools and Resources. Effective use of resource
systems requires functionality and reliability under a wide variety of
circumstances and conditions, including disaster response situations. These
characteristics should include:
• Portability. To the extent possible, resource systems should be portable to allow
transportation and usage in difficult field conditions. The systems should be
designed to be field-ready.
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• Redundancy. There should not be any single expert or expert-system that
cannot be replaced in an emergency. Duplication of function is a necessity.
• Interoperability. Models and databases must be compatible with those from
other agencies. Personnel with various backgrounds, and from other agencies,
should be able to use them.
• Resiliency. These systems should be robust and have limited vulnerability. To
the extent possible, resource systems should be able to operate when central
power sources and direct internet access are not available, and they should not
rely solely on standard communication lines to function.
d) Dissemination and Maintenance of Resource Systems. To achieve maximum
effectiveness, resource systems must be disseminated to the full range of
potential users, including first responders and long term-managers at the local
and State level, in addition to EPA central office and regional staff and other
federal agencies. Relevant databases such as the Toxics Release Inventory
(TRI), which is under threat of losing essential data due to proposed changes in
thresholds of reporting, is nationally computerized and available and should be
preserved. The Chemical Storage Inventory under the Clean Air Act 112(r) is
another example of data that can be helpful in emergency disaster planning and
response and should be digitized for ready access by first responders. Resource
systems should be maintained to keep their contents current, reliable and easily
searchable.
The SAB recommends that EPA solicit feedback from users,
particularly local and state personnel including first responders, and
regional EPA managers, regarding resource systems and where
necessary digitized databases to support improved disaster response
decisions.
Periodic updates of resource systems should consider comments and criticisms
from users. The results of audits of response performance following actual
events and trials should also be used in maintenance and updating of resource
systems.
e) Document the Basis of Decisions. During a disaster decision makers have little
time and thus it would be inappropriate to require detailed written justification
of all decisions that are made. At the same time, if the Agency is to learn from
past experience, some documentation of the considerations and factors that lead
to key decisions would be extremely valuable.
The SAB recommends that EPA develop simple streamlined methods to
document the basis of decisions made in the course of managing
environmental disasters.
For example, this might be as simple as equipping key decision makers with
small digital audio recorders which would allow verbal documentation that
could subsequently be transcribed.
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f) Audits of Event Response Performance. EPA should play a special role as
compiler and synthesizer of performance results and characteristics. The
Agency often identifies problems which are commonly referred to as "lessons
learned", but "lessons" are not really "learned" and have little value until
procedures and behaviors are changed (continuous improvement). While we are
aware of and have read the reports by the Agency's Inspector General on EPA's
performance during several recent environmental disasters, we are not persuaded
that these sufficiently meet this need.
The SAB recommends that EPA perform and encourage performance
audits of event responses by its staff at the local, state, regional and
national level.
g) Sensitivity of Resource Systems. In some cases, components of resource systems
developed by EPA may be too sensitive to warrant general release to the public
or to local and state entities.
The SAB recommends that EPA carefully assess the content of its
resource systems to evaluate the security risks associated with their
release.
Criteria recommended by SAB for this evaluation include the ability of system
resources to be used to implement an attack, or to optimize consequences of an
attack. Examples of resource systems that have components with considerable
risk associated with release include the "consequence modeling" component of
the Water Sentinel program and, to a lesser extent, the incident modeling in
Emergency Consequence Assessment Tool (ECAT). For example, if a
calibrated Water Sentinel model for a specific utility falls into the wrong hands,
it could be used against that utility by attacking them at their most vulnerable
distribution system locations.
h) Development of Resource Clearinghouse. The SAB endorses efforts like those
in ECAT to compile a wide breadth of information in a user-friendly form. This
work should also include internet enabled tools (with and without security-
related access controls) and coordination of spatial data bases (land use, land
cover, census data, chemical plants). It is presumed that all counties in the US
have an inventory of all chemical facilities, power plants, water and wastewater
treatment facilities, hazardous waste generators, storage facilities, hospitals,
research labs, universities, etc. located within their jurisdictional boundaries, in
terms of types and amounts of potential contaminants and their coordinates.
These inventories, as well as Federal databases in which EPA has primary
authority, need to be updated annually. Thus,
The SAB recommends that EPA emphasize its role in the development
of centralized and streamlined virtual libraries of references, guidance
materials and models, and other resources.
Completion of the tasks outlined in this section should prove valuable to the small
interdisciplinary Environmental Disaster Assessment Team recommended above in
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Part 3 of this report, and that team should be consulted in the formulation and
completion of these tasks. However, this team should not be given primary
responsibility for completing these tasks so as not to divert its attention from the
critically important job of identifying, ranking, assessing and planning for possible
future environmental disasters.
5. QA/QC for Data During Emergencies
Field measurements made during the early stages of a disaster have a different
purpose than field measurements made for long-term monitoring and remediation.
Emergency responders and citizens need fast order-of-magnitude indications of the nature
and level of hazards that they may face. Accordingly instrumentation, quality assurance
procedures for authorizing the release of data, and measurement priorities need to be
designed to appropriately meet those needs.
Many existing EPA data protocols do not emphasize rapid response, because they
have been developed to meet the needs of long-term monitoring and regulatory activities.
Especially in the early stages of an emergency, the quality of data may have to be balanced
against the need to get information to users on the time-scale they require. This balance
should be worked out in advance, so that procedures are already developed and approved
before the emergency occurs, and a graceful transition can be achieved from rapid order-
of-magnitude assessment to increasingly more time consuming and accurate
characterizations as time goes by (See Figure 2 in Appendix A). While the SAB is pleased
to see the creation of the Agency's Environmental Response Laboratory Network, with its
focus on "screening/sentinel laboratories," "confirmatory laboratories," and "reference
laboratories" this is an issue that warrants additional attention.
The SAB recommends that EPA develop procedures for rapid field
measurement, data analysis and data release to the public during the early
stages of emergencies, as well as protocols for how those procedures will be
modified to assure greater precision and quality control as needed in later
stages of the life-cycle of an environmental disaster.
6. Improved Communication and Public Consultation
Communication needs and content are highly context dependent. Before, during
and after events, the goals and methods for effective communications should be different.
For example, during an event when immediate protective actions are needed, rapid one-
way approaches are critical. However, before and after events, these methods are rarely
appropriate. In these periods, dialogues with decision makers, stakeholders and
representatives of the public are key ways for building knowledge about current contexts
and information needs and preferences. Development of messages based on knowledge
and empirical testing enhances the probability of effective decisions and actions during
events. Without such fundamental and current knowledge, communications may create
problems where few or none existed.
Effective communication between many different parties is essential: a) in
performing assessments and making plans before an environmental disaster occurs, b) in
protecting human health and ecosystems during the initial stages of an environmental
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disaster, and c) in managing long-term protection, clean-up and recovery from an
environmental disaster.
Communications about environmental disaster requires two-way interactions within
the U.S. EPA, across agencies, and with partners and the public.4 In designing any
communications program, one must ask the question: "How can information be transmitted
to elicit well informed decisions and behavior by individuals, first responders, decision
makers and organizations?"
Communications need to occur throughout the process of assessing, preparing for,
and responding to environmental disasters. Of course, the purpose and form of the
communication often needs to change at different stages along the life cycle of an event
(Figure 2 Appendix A). For example, immediate protective guidance is often necessary
during the initial response phase while there is great uncertainty, while more specific
guidance is provided during later stages when more information is available and
uncertainties have been reduced.
No aspect of communication is more important than communication with the
public - including both those directly affected by the event and the general public. Too
often, communication is seen as the one-way conveyance of facts, guidance and decisions
from experts and those in charge to a passive receiving public. Sometimes in a crisis
situation such one-way communication is necessary ("You need to stay in your house and
seal the doors and window because a cloud of toxic gas is rapidly approaching"). As
elaborated below, even in such situations, communications are likely to be far more
effective if generic versions have been carefully developed, empirically evaluated and
refined ahead of time through careful two-way interaction with individuals who are typical
of the intended audience.
Recent years have witnessed considerable progress in developing a scientific basis
for risk communication. The key insight from this work is that a priori there is no such
thing as an expert in the design of the content of effective risk communication messages.
It is essential to adopt an empirical approach. Unless one understands the way in which a
recipient will interpret and understand a message, even as simple a message as "Take a wet
cloth to cover your face in the event you find yourself being exposed," one can have no
confidence that it will be properly understood.
Behavioral social scientists have developed a variety of strategies to determine,
through empirical studies, the "mental models" that people adopt in thinking about risks
(Fischhoff, 2005; Morgan etal., 2002). They have also developed empirical strategies for
testing and refining possible messages (Fischhoff, in press). Unfortunately, with almost no
behavioral social scientists on staff, EPA does not possess the expertise to make use of
such methods.5
4In this connection the EPA is developing and deploying an emergency management data architecture known
as Emergency Management Portal (EMP). The office is also working closely with regions to establish
communication standards and assure that needed equipment is available. Finally the Agency has developed a
Crisis Communication Plan. However, none of these activities appear to be well informed by modern
behavioral social science.
5EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center has run a series of workshops on "message mapping"
(Covello et al., 2007). While these have identified many issues that deserve consideration in the event of
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This absence of understanding and expertise also has implications for other aspects
of EPA's mission. For this reason the SAB makes two related recommendations:
First, OKD should re-establish its program in behavioral social science and risk
communication research, perhaps by reinvigorating the very successful
collaboration it once had with the NSF Program in Decision Research and
Management Science (DRMS).
Second, in assembling the small interdisciplinary Environmental Disaster Assessment
Team proposed above in Part 3, at least one or two of the members should have
a strong working understanding of, and ability to apply, modern methods of
empirical social science for developing risk communication strategies, and the
design, testing and refinement of risk communication messages.
Frequent, transparent interactions with partners (within the Agency, across
agencies, and with others) in advance of events are an important part of building
communication readiness. Purposes of these interactions and related research include:
• Determination of how people form their concepts of risk and related issues, as well
as how people make decisions and what information influences their decisions.
• Development and rigorous pre-testing of consistent messages for a variety of
scenarios and receivers. Scenarios formulation should include representatives of the
public and mass media to ensure that exercises involve their perspectives and gauge
the likelihood of behaviors that would have significant impacts in real events.
Representatives of other partners appropriate to the scenario should also be
involved both in drills as well as in debriefmgs after exercises. During an event,
zero tolerance for false positives often works against providing the public with
timely and useful protective information. The tradeoffs in risks (e.g., public health
and environmental vs. organizational) are important considerations that should be
clearly identified and articulated by decision makers. When uncertainty prevents a
definitive decision, warnings that include protective actions and specific guidance
should be issued with a caveat to stay tuned in for more certain information. Pre-
testing such messages would yield considerable insights about what will and will
not work well in eliciting desirable behaviors.
• Anticipation of how people would respond to communication initiatives (messages
and interactive engagements), especially under stressful conditions. Research is
needed to identify how first responders, decision makers and the public are most
likely to respond to communication initiatives.
• Empirical research involving formative and summative evaluations of risk
communication activities is essential to ensure continuing progress.
In environmental disasters EPA should endeavor to ensure that information the
Agency has developed gets to the persons or organization that are trusted by the intended
receivers (in crisis conditions) or partners (in routine conditions). In some situations,
another entity or person (e.g., local official or community leader) will be seen as a more
possible water security emergencies, no empirical studies are included of how various audiences might
understand and interpret alternative messages.
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trusted source of information. In those circumstances, the EPA should focus on getting the
best possible information to that party and helping him/her promptly interpret and use the
information correctly. In preparation for an event, EPA should a) recognize and be in
contact with trusted social networks within a community, and discover the ways in which
information is currently and rapidly disseminated (e.g., reverse 911, e-mail, instant
messaging, YouTube and other networks)
There is an urgent need to improve consultation with the public on a variety of
tough choices that many environmental disasters can present. An obvious example is
decisions about "how clean is clean enough" when restoration to pre-disaster conditions is
neither technically nor economically feasible. Effective mechanisms to perform such
consultation are lacking.
The SAB recommends that the development, demonstration and evaluation of
mechanisms for better including public values and preferences in clean-up
decisions should be an element of the reinvigorated program of behavior
research in ORD.
The SAB understands that EPA has developed a Crisis Communication Plan and
already participates in a wide variety of multi-agency drills and exercises on disaster
response. The SAB also recognizes that selected employees within EPA have been
assigned to red or blue response teams, and they are already recognized for their
capabilities in specialized areas of disaster response. These employees are expected to stop
all other duties in the event of a disaster and devote themselves solely to the response for
however long it takes. Such employees have laptop computers especially dedicated for
disaster response, and they have successfully executed drills in "bunker" locations.
However, it is our belief that shortcomings may still exist in the area of communications,
and that the ability to locate and contact each person in the network during a disaster has
not been given proper attention by the agency or by Homeland Security.
The SAB recommends that a failsafe method for communication among key
members of the disaster response team be designed, implemented and tested
on a regular basis.
Obviously, responders must be able also to communicate with critical models, databases,
and decision support tools and convey the results of their analysis to responsible parties.
7. Summary and Restatement of Key Recommendations
Thinking broadly and becoming more anticipatory should be a goal of every
agency. While it is doing a good job of addressing those aspects of environmental
disasters for which it is responsible in the context of DHS National Planning Scenarios
EPA would be well advised to also think more broadly and in a more anticipatory way
about the full range of possible environmental disasters that could arise from natural
causes, accidents or the actions of terrorists. To this end the Science Advisory Board
recommends that the EPA:
a) Establish a small interdisciplinary Environmental Disaster Assessment Team of
five to seven professionals who are charged with identifying, prioritizing and
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assessing potential environmental disasters. This team should develop a system
to identify potential environmental disasters, prioritize them based on
probability and consequence, and identify common attributes and response
strategies that could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of agency
response.
b) The Environmental Disaster Assessment Team should perform, or arrange for
others to perform, reasonably comprehensive assessments of those disasters
deemed to be of greatest concern. It should then help and advise the Agency to
further:
• Identify gaps in coverage by Federal, state and local authorities and needs
for improved coverage, coordination and preplanning;
• Develop prior arrangements with experts and organizations who can
provide the needed knowledge and skills and develop a geo-coded list of
this expertise so that these connections can be made rapidly in an
emergency;
• Identify short-term waivers to regulations and other rules that might be
needed and prearranged mechanisms to achieve these waivers in a way that
balances efficiency with protection and other objectives.
In support of the mission of the Agency's emergency response program, the SAB
recommends that the EPA:
c) Examine and seek to learn from the best practices of other public and private
organizations. In so doing, it should seek strategies by which it, and other
responsible parties, might better:
• anticipate, assess, plan for, and practice responses to deal with major
events that plausibly might occur in coming years;
• learn rapidly what is going on and develop a rapid and rough sense of what
risks may exist to people and the environment;
• effectively coordinate and communicate with other key players including
first responders and the public;
• respond with flexibility to the specific needs and circumstances of the event
at hand, including the ability to adapt procedures and make real-time
decisions when previous plans are not working;
• delegate decision authority to responsible individual in the field; and
• mobilize personnel and resources in a rapid and orderly way.
d) Compile an inventory of existing models, tools, data and resources, including
those that, while developed for other purposes, might be made useful for disaster
response; perform a comprehensive assessment and develop a report on the gaps
in the available resource systems; solicit feedback from users of these tools,
particularly local and state personnel and regional EPA managers, regarding
resource systems; and identify further development and research needs. Since
some of these tools may involve sensitive information, their content, and
associated access policies should be carefully reviewed to assure an appropriate
balance between needs of local and regional responder and the public and the
necessity for protection against misuse. Emphasize EPA's role in development
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of centralized and streamlined virtual libraries of references, guidance materials
and models, and other resources.
e) Develop procedures for rapid field measurement, data analysis and data release
during the early stages of emergencies, as well as protocols for how those
procedures will be modified to assure greater precision and quality control as
needed in later stages of the life-cycle of an environmental disaster.
f) Develop simple streamlined methods to document the basis of decisions made in
the course of managing environmental disasters.
g) Conduct performance audits of event responses by EPA staff at the local, state,
regional and national level.
h) Finally, to better ground its work on communications in modern behavioral
social science, the SAB recommends that the EPA reinvigorate its program in
behavioral social science research and application, perhaps by reestablishing the
very successful collaboration it once had with NSF-DRMS. This should
include: i) a strong program in empirically based methods of risk
communication, and development, demonstration and evaluation of mechanisms
for better including public values and preferences in post-disaster clean-up
decisions.
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References
Allison, Graham T. and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision Second Edition, Longman -
Addison Wesley Longman, 1999, 416 pp.
Covello, Vincent, Scott Minamyer, Kathy Clayton, "Effective Risk and Crisis
Communicaton during Water Security Emergencies: Summary report of EPA sponsored
message mapping workshops," EPA/600/R-07/027, March 2007.
Fischhoff, B. (2005). Cognitive processes in stated preference methods. In K-G. Maler &
J. Vincent (Eds.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, pp. 937-968, Amsterdam:
Elsevier.
Fischhoff, B. , "Risk perception and communication", in R.Detels, R.Beaglehole,
M.A..Lansang, and M. Gulliford (eds), Oxford Textbook of Public Health, Fifth Edition,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, in press.
Morgan, M. Granger, Baruch Fischhoff, Ann Bostrom and Cynthia Atman, Risk
Communication: A mental models approach, 351pp., Cambridge University Press, New
York, 2002.
SAB (1995), "Future Issues in Environmental Engineering," EPA-SAB_EEC-95-004, US
EPA Science Advisory Board, Washington, DC.
SAB (1995), "Environmental Impacts of Natural Hazards: The need for Agency action,"
EPA-SAB_EEC-99-COM-003, US EPA Science Advisory Board, Washington, DC.
Smil, Vaclav, Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next 50 Years, MIT Press, 320pp,
2008.
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APPENDIX A
Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
Box 1: Summary of EPA's authorizations and responsibilities with respect to environmental
disasters.
EPA has over 30 years experience in responding to releases of oil and hazardous materials under the
National Contingency Plan (NCP) that was established and/or modified by the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Clean Water Act (CWA),
and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Most of these responses do not rise to the level of Incidents of
National Significance that are the focus of the National Response Framework (NRF) and the National
Incident Management System (NIMS) which are required by various Homeland Security Presidential
Directives (HSPDs). Typically, EPA receives over 30,000 release notifications per year (hazardous
materials account for about 66% of the total notifications and oil spills for about 34%). Under this
program EPA conducts 300 responses per year and assists in about 500 others. Specific EPA
responses are to: i) environmental emergencies, ii) acutely hazardous sites/inland oil spills, iii)
nationally-declared disasters, iv) terrorist incidents, and v) major national security events. Response
activities include, but are not limited to: i) sampling and monitoring, ii) site screening, iii)
decontamination, iv) disposal, v) dust mitigation, and vi) data management.
Under EPA's national approach to responses to Incidents of National Significance, the system that the
Agency uses to respond to oil and hazardous material releases, under the NCP are integrated into the
NRP and NIMS structure and are used when EPA responds within that structure as a part of the total
national response to such incidents.
The National Response Framework provides a comprehensive and coordinated structure to prepare for
and respond to all Incidents of National Significance. The NRP, coupled with the nationwide response
template of the NIMS provides the response structure and mechanisms that enable government and
nongovernmental agencies and organizations to provide an all-hazards approach to emergency
response activities. The system established is able to address large-scale events needing national
leadership (e.g., the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, and Agencies such as EPA)
for incident management and smaller events where localized management is more appropriate (e.g.,
state and local officials and organizations).
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Figure 1: The preparedness cycle as outlined in the January 2008 National Response Framework. EPA has
worked hard applying this approach to the aspects of many disasters for which it has primary responsibility.
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Table 1: One possible example of a structure that EPA might use to develop a taxonomy
of potential environmental disasters.
Natural events
Events With Humans
or their Systems in the Causal Chain
Biologically related
Disease (natural)
Invasive species (natural)
Geologically related
Earthquake
Flood plain events
Volcanic eruptions
Weather related
Drought
Flood (e.g., Tsunami, storm surge)
Lightening
Wildfire
Wind (e.g., hurricane, tornado)
Complex network system failures
Dam, levee, dike failures
Disruption of network infrastructures
(e.g., power, water, sewer, high-
ways, rail, pipelines, etc.)
Large structural collapse
Nuclear events
Human induced (unintentional and
intentional)
Biological
Chemical release
Explosions
Fire
Invasive species
Radiological
Water, air, food contamination
Note: While many of the items listed here involve precipitating events that happen suddenly, for
completeness any such taxonomy should also include events that develop more gradually (e.g.
droughts, invasive species) whose consequences are never-the-less disastrous. When more than one
disturbance occurs, the response may be more extreme than would occur when these disturbances
occur singly. (Paine et al., 1998)
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Disruption of
communication systems
Disruption of
Electric Power
System
Pump and
Treatment
Failures
Destruction of
buildings &
equipment
Social and
economic
well-being
Disruption of
waterways
Contamination
of Water
Accumulation of
organic materials
in water bodies
Ecosystem
Health
Inability to Make
Repairs
Blockage or
destruction
bridges and
hiahwavs
Figure 2: Simplified illustration of an influence diagram tracing some of the routes by which a volcanic event might
result in sustained contamination of water supply
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For an Event of a aiven tvoe:
Pre-event Planning and Anticipatory
Consequence Analysis
Pre-event mitiqation and avoidance
Measurement
Risk analysis and
consequence
analysis tools
Communication
Jurisdiction /
Coordination
Remediation
Mitigation
Pre-placement of equip-
ment, development of
protocols, etc.
Pre-development of
base methods
Pre-development &
testing of base
messages; pre-planned
communication
channels
SOPs, etc.
Drills
Pre-event planning
Prior actions that could
reduce or eliminate risks
Post-event Response
Event duration:
Moments to Weeks
"Crisis" Phase
Initial rapid
measurement
Order of
magnitude risk
Initial Risk
Communication
Interaction between and
with first resoonders
"Management
" Phase
"Remediation"
and Follow-up
Phase*
Refined
Measurement
Long-term monitoring
Refined modeling and
risk assessment
On-going refinement for different audiences
Interaction and coordination between
and with other entities
Remediation activities
Figure 3. Pre- and post-event tasks for an environmental disaster. Many of the actions noted sh9ould be performed at the regional level.
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APPENDIX B
Disaster Prevention and Management Experts Presenting Information to the SAB
Name
Mr. Joseph Becker
Mr. Patrick Brady
Ms. Debbie Dietrich
Dr. Baruch Fischhoff
Mr. Michael Lunsford
Ms. Suzanne Mattel
Dr. L.D. McMullen
Mr. Alan Nelson
Mr. Timothy Overton
Mr. Timothy Scott
Dr. Gayle Sugiyama
Ms. Dana Tulis
Mr. William Wark
Dr. Henry Willis
Organization
The American Red Cross
BNSF Railway
EPA Office of Emergency Management
Carnegie Mellon University
CSX Transportation
The Sierra Club
Des Moines Water Works
Nuclear Energy Institute
Dow Chemical Company
Dow Chemical Company
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
EPA Office of Emergency Management
Unites States Chemical Safety and Hazard
Investigation Board
The Rand Corporation
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