Posted on October 25, 2016 by Keith Hopson
(Best read while humming the theme song from Ghostbusters)
In an unprecedented move (to my knowledge) the Industrial and Hazardous Waste Permits Section of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recently requested permit holders provide the agency with their facility’s primary and secondary emergency response points of contact. Specifically, they ask for the names and office and cell and/or pager numbers.
The information is typically included in a facility’s permit, but my personal experience is a change of phone numbers or even personnel may or may not result in a timely permit modification. The fact the agency intends to keep this information in a spread sheet format should make the data more readily available in an emergency than having to extract the information from one or more permits.
The inspiration for this somewhat unusual request was the recent proliferation of earthquakes in our neighboring state to the north although any other natural (floods, hurricanes, or tornados) or manmade disasters could well result in the same need.
A simple action? Yes. Could it be very beneficial? Certainly; because, as we all know, in an emergency it’s important to know who ya gonna call …
Tags: Emergency response, TCEQ