Oil Program

San Francisco Bay Oil Spill

EPA on-scene coordinators are working with other federal and state agencies to respond to the Nov. 7 oil spill.

• Coast Guard Response »

• NOAA Response »

• Calif. Coastal Commission »

• EPA Oil Program »

• UC Davis Wildlife Rescue »

Google map of affected areas

Emergencies -- report oil or chemical spills at 800-424-8802

To contact a Region 9 Duty Officer for oil or chemical spills in Arizona, California, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands please call (800) 300-2193. This number is staffed 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

National Oil Program

Suisin Slough oil spill response

EPA’s Oil Program provides emergency response personnel, oil spill and SPCC enforcement support. This page provides information about EPA's oil spill prevention and cleanup programs in EPA's Pacific Southwest Region (Region 9).

Preventing Oil Spills

Oil spills present a significant threat to the environment. As a cornerstone of EPA’s strategy to prevent oil spills from reaching our nation’s waters, the agency requires that facilities develop Oil Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure, or SPCC Plans. The regulations, developed under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, specify that:

SPCC Plans must be prepared, certified (by a professional engineer) and implemented by facilities which store, process, transfer, distribute, use, drill, produce, or refine oil or oil productions.
Facilities must establish procedures, methods and install proper equipment to prevent an oil release.
Facilities must train all personnel to properly respond to an oil spill by conducting drills and training sessions.
Facilities must also have a plan that outlines steps to contain, clean up and mitigate any effects that an oil spill may have on waterways.

Facility Response Plan required for worst-case oil discharges

Facilities that store large amounts of oil must have the capability to adequately respond to a spill. Under the Clean Water Act, such facilities must submit Facility Response Plans (FRPs) to respond to a worst-case discharge and the resulting threats to human health or the environment.

Basic requirements include:

Immediate spill notification to the National Response Center
Timely deployment of spill response equipment
Oil Spill Monitoring & Response

Outreach on Oil Program Activities

By working cooperatively with industry and other government agencies, EPA’s Pacific Southwest Regional Office seeks to reduce the number, size and impact of oils spills into waterways and environmentally sensitive areas. EPA’s oil program reaches the oil industry through presentations and workshops to trade organizations, environmental task forces, and state governments on SPCC rules, oil spill response, and enforcement.

Contact Information

Peter Reich (reich.peter@epa.gov)
U.S. EPA Region 9 Oil Program (SFD-9-4)
75 Hawthorne St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
Phone: (415) 972-3052
Fax: (415) 947-3518