SAGADAHOC COUNTY LOCAL EMERGENCY PLANNING COMMITTEE (LEPC)

In 1986, the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) was enacted by Congress. This act known as SARA title III, was established to require Federal, State, and Local governments and industry to implement emergency planning and reporting on hazardous and toxic chemicals. The LEPC’s throughout the State were designated by the State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) to create Emergency Response Plans for their communities and monitor all reporting of hazardous and toxic chemicals. To assist with this operation, the CAMEO program was developed for use by the LEPC’s and emergency responders.

CAMEO is a nationally based chemical inventory reporting system used in Sagadahoc County and throughout the State of Maine to track facilities that have mass quantities of hazardous chemicals and extremely hazardous chemicals. This software is also used by first responder agencies to preplan and mitigate incidents.

The reporting of these chemicals is through electronic transfer of data, as of 2005-year reporting. The software that is used in the transfer of data is the Tier-2 reporting system. This is a free download from the government and easily set up. Up until this year, the State of Maine used paper reporting for their acquisition of information from facilities. This new system will speed up the process of reporting and assist the facilities and State in keeping information up to date as soon as changes occur due to the ease of information transfer.

Facilities can use Tier2 submit to manage, print and send electronic Tier2 reports. State and local emergency responders can import those facilities’ reports directly into their copies of CAMEO. By importing facility reports, responders can have current chemical inventory information available to them if they need to respond to an incident at a reporting facility.

LEPC OPERATIONS

Other than the Chemical Reporting that the LEPC is in charge of, there are many other tasks carried on by the County LEPC. The task of developing an Emergency Operations Plan was completed and taken over by the Emergency Management Agency (EMA) in 2005. The EMA will maintain and update the information for the LEPC with their assistance. The members of the LEPC, all volunteers, come from State, Local, Industry and private citizens. All with the objective of keeping the County ready to respond in case of a disaster. The LEPC trains its members, and the community first responders in hazardous materials response, emergency management, local disaster assistance, incident management and other important functions. Training is one of the most important tasks to be accomplished. Knowledge always leads to a better understanding and lessons fears, allowing responders to be collected in emergency situations, and not afraid of the unknown.

We also assist the Local and State government agencies in other information gathering as needed. Recently we have been involved in training for the new National Incident Management System, Cellular coverage tracking in the County, getting weather radios into out schools, and emergency response to animals in crisis. We have had members participate in local emergency drills, as well as training and conferences on emergency planning.

VOLUNTEERS

The LEPC is always looking for more members, and anyone interested in volunteering on the committee is encouraged to contact the Sagadahoc County EMA office at 207-443-8210. The EMA director, Rusty Robertson, or the LEPC secretary Jim Simons will be happy to take your information and have to attend our next meeting. The LEPC meets BI-monthly, usually on the second Tuesday of the month at 5:30 PM. The location changes to allow the membership to meet in different locations around the county. At this time we have two specific positions on the LEPC that are vacant. These are for people in Transportation and Media. Private citizen volunteers are greatly needed also, as well as people in industry. There are plenty of jobs to go around, and if you are interested in learning more about your County and the safety of the community, please contact us.

- James Simons, LEPC Secretary