NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document
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The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution
Contingency Plan, more commonly called the National
Contingency Plan or NCP, is the federal government's
blueprint for responding to both oil spills and hazardous
substance releases. The National Contingency Plan is
the result of our country's efforts to develop a national
response capability .and promote overall coordination
among the hierarchy of responders and contingency
plans.
The first National Contingency Plan was developed and
published in 1968 in response to a massive oil spill from
the oil tanker Torrey Canyon off the coast of England the
year before. More than 37 million gallons of crude oil
spilled into the water, causing massive environmental
damage. To avoid the problems faced by response
officials involved in this incident, U.S. officials developed
a coordinated approach to cope with potential spills in
U.S. waters. The 1968 plan provided the first
comprehensive system of accident reporting, spill
containment, and cleanup, and established a response
headquarters, a national reaction team, and regional
reaction teams (precursors to the current National
Response Team and Regional Response Teams).
Congress has broadened the scope of the National
Contingency Plan over the years. As required by the
Clean Water Act of 1972, the NCP was revised the
following year to include a framework for responding to
hazardous substance spills as well as oil discharges.
Following the passage of Superfund legislation in 1980,
the NCP was broadened to cover releases at hazardous
waste sites requiring emergency removal actions. Over
the years, additional revisions have been made to the
NCP to keep pace with the enactment of legislation. The
latest revisions to the NCP were finalized in 1994 to
reflect the oil spill provisions of the Oil Pollution Act of
1990.
See attached file: EPA-anthrax-NatlRespnsSys-authority.pdf)
02/08/20C
NYC-WTC_000152010
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