Oil spill drills

To successfully meet oil spill drill requirements in Washington you must:

• Schedule your drills through the Northwest Area Contingency Plan exercise calendar.
• Design your drills with Ecology staff.
• Work to meet all 15 core National Preparedness for Response Exercise Program (NPREP) components over the triennial cycle.
• Act on the lessons you learn to improve your plan.

Scheduling requirements

To allow enough time for drill design and planning, the regulation requires:

• Deployment drills be scheduled 30 days in advance.
• Tabletop drills be scheduled 60 days in advance.
• Worst-case drills and out-of-state drills for vessel plan holders be scheduled 90 days in advance.

View the drill calendar and/or schedule a drill

Drill evaluation tools

We evaluate deployment, tabletop, and worst-case oil spill drills. Evaluation tools include:

• Three year schedule for worst case drills in Washington
• Drill Evaluation Checklist
• Self-Certified Oil Spill Evaluation Checklist – instructions to self-certify an oil spill drill, or for incidents/unannounced drills.
• Out-of-State Oil Spill Evaluation Checklist – instructions for self-certifying an oil spill drill held in other states.
• Overview of Oil Spill Exercise and Response - overview of spill response history and authorities
• Anatomy of Oil Spill Exercise and Response - overview of the Incident Command System