Washington State Department of Ecology : Spills Home

Washington’s Zero Spills Goal: Acting on Lessons Learned

Spills in Washington present an opportunity to learn valuable lessons which can be implemented to improve the response outcomes for future incidents. To cement the two goals of capturing and acting on lessons learned into our organization, the Spills Program developed a policy to conduct an independent review of larger spills and commissioned a report to summarize the lessons learned.

• Grandview Pesticide Fire January 26-28, 2005 Lessons Learned
  (In PDF, link to Adobe Reader software)
• Genwest Report on the Foss Maritime Barge spill, December 30, 2003:  Approximately 4,800 gallons of oil entered the water, and another 1,075 gallons were recovered from the barge deck.
  (In PDF, link to Adobe Reader software)
• Actions Taken in Response to the above report
• Genwest Report on the Army Corps of Engineers Dalles Dam spill, discovered on January 15, 2004:  Transformer oil containing low level polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) was released during the spill.
  (In PDF, link to Adobe Reader software)
• Actions Taken in Response to the above report
• Genwest Report on the Dalco Passage Spill
  (In PDF, link to Adobe Reader software)

What are the opportunities to apply lessons learned from spills?

• Ecology Policies and Procedures.
• Training and Equipment investments.
• The Northwest Area Committee (NWAC)/ Regional Response Team (RRT) with many focused subcommittees that make recommendations to the NWAC/RRT of which Ecology is a member.
• Tug Escort Committee
• Oil Spill Transfer Advisory Committee
• Oil Spill Advisory Committee
• Contingency Planning Rule Advisory Committee