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Welcome
Welcome to the Bureau of Reclamation's (Reclamation) Building Seismic Safety Program (BSSP)
Internet site!
This BSSP Internet site has undergone a complete renovation to assist you in your building seismic safety queries. You can view the Executive Orders, Public Laws, and Federal Standards that form the foundation of the program; Briefing Bulletins, Guidelines, and Implementation Plans that outline the processes that comprise the program; the Program Process itself; online orders; and links to other sources of information surrounding the field of building seismic safety and the BSSP.
For more information regarding the BSSP, please contact Tim P. Brown, P.E., BSSP Program Manager at <tbrown@do.usbr.gov>. Further contact information is located on the "Contact Information" page, which can always be found via the links near the top of the page or in the left-hand column.
Purpose and Mission of the Building Seismic Safety Program
The BSSP was developed in 1997 through the U.S. Department of the Interior Seismic Safety Program (Interior Program) in response to a specific series of Executive Orders and Public Laws.
The mission of the BSSP is to assess the seismic safety of Reclamation-owned and -leased buildings and to mitigate unacceptable seismic risks in those buildings.
History and Purpose of the
U.S. Department of the Interior Seismic Safety Program
The Interior Program and the individual bureau programs were developed in the mid-1990s to respond to a specific series of Executive Orders and Public Laws. In summary, all Federal agencies in the Executive Branch were required to identify owned buildings that were not capable of providing a minimum Life Safety Performance Level (LS) during anticipated earthquakes and provide the associated seismic rehabilitation cost estimates.
The Interior Program met these requirements in December of 1998 with the report Interior Seismic Safety Program Executive Summary, Estimated Seismic Rehabilitation Costs, and Data Submittal to FEMA in which 685 seismically deficient, unsafe buildings were identified from the overall inventory of 27,857 bureau-owned buildings. The report used statistical methods to estimate the associated rehabilitation costs. The overall cost of completing seismic rehabilitation in all bureau-owned, seismically deficient buildings was estimated (in 1998 dollars) to be over $678 million. Since that time, the Interior Program has initiated cost-effective efforts to replace the statistical estimates with risk-based, building-specific rehabilitation cost estimates.
The Interior Program is a recognized leader in the Federal seismic safety community through our proactive approach at applying risk-based decisionmaking to the rehabilitation of a large group of seismically deficient buildings. In many cases, the tools required for this approach were not available from any source and were developed by the Interior Program. Risk-based decisionmaking allows Interior bureaus to pursue risk reduction in a prioritized and cost effective manner. Working with existing funding, individual bureau programs have completed, and continue to complete, risk reduction projects for extremely high risk bureau-owned buildings occupied by our employees; other Federal, State, and local employees; and the visiting public.
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March 11, 2009 |
Tyna S. Petersen
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