Oil spill drills

Washington’s drill requirements

To comply with oil spill drill regulations in Washington, you must:

• Schedule your drills on the shared drill calendar.
• Work with Ecology staff to design and evaluate your drills.
• Complete all 15 core components of the National Preparedness for Response Exercise Program (NPREP) over a three-year cycle.
• Use lessons learned from drills to improve your response plan

Drill scheduling deadlines

To give enough time for planning, schedule your drills in advance:

• Deployment drills – at least 30 days before
• Tabletop drills – at least 60 days before
• Worst-case and out-of-state vessel drills – at least 90 days before

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.