Technical manuals

Oil spill contingency plan holders are required to submit technical manuals if they operate or transit in Neah Bay, Cathlamet, or San Juan Islands planning standard areas. The technical manual must include all of the equipment appropriate for the operating environment that is necessary to meet the recovery and storage requirements for the worst-case discharge through a 48-hour time frame.

Guidance for creating a technical manual

• Get guidance for creating your technical manual. Use this guidance to develop technical manuals in accordance with our contingency plan rule. Primary response contractors and regulated plan holders can also use this guidance to better understand the content included in required technical manuals.
• Technical manual template. This template may be used to meet this requirement.

Examples of manuals that meet the requirement

These manuals are created by contractors or plan holders, and approved by Ecology. We provide them here for educational purposes.

• Marine Spill Response Corporation (MSRC)
  • San Juan Islands
  • Cathlamet
  • Neah Bay
• National Response Corporation (NRC)
  • San Juan Islands
  • Neah Bay
• Clean Rivers Cooperative (CRC)
  • Cathlamet
• BNSF Railway
  • Tri-Cities

Primary response contractors

Many plan holders do not own equipment and rely entirely on their primary response contractor (PRC) to provide spill response resources. If this is the case, the plan holder may choose to develop a manual that details the equipment assets they can access through their PRC. Or, the PRC can submit the technical manual as an addendum to their PRC application for reference by the plan holder.

If a response contractor submits a technical manual on behalf of their plan holder(s), and lists the plan holder(s) in the manual, they should work with the plan holder(s) to identify relevant information, including oil types covered under the plan and worst case discharge volumes covered under the plan.

Public review and comment

Technical manuals are subject to public review and comment periods.

• See contingency plans open for public comment.
• See primary response contractor applications open for public comment.