Guidelines for Developing and Maintaining an Incident Response Plan

Learn more:

Forms:

Incident Response Plan (short) (PDF: 145 KB / 2 Pages)
Incident Response Plan (long) (PDF: 270 KB / 24 Pages)
Incident Response Plan (DOC: 846 KB / 24 Pages)

External Links:

M.S. § 18B.37, subd. 4 (storage, handling & disposal plan)
M.S. § 18C.235, subd. 1 (contingency plan for storage of bulk products)
Minnesota Rules Part 1505.3100 (release response plan)
Minnesota Rules Part 1510.0372, subpart 2.P.
Minnesota Rules Part 1510.0402, subpart 2.L.

Who is required to have a plan?

Some businesses are legally required to develop and maintain an incident response plan. If your business is engaged in one or more of the following, it must establish and maintain an incident response plan:

Commercial pesticide application;

Noncommercial pesticide application;

Structural pest control;

Storage of bulk pesticides; and/or

Storage of bulk fertilizers, including anhydrous ammonia.

Regardless of whether or not you store these products in bulk, an incident response plan is part of good emergency planning.

What information should be included in the plan?

An incident response plan should describe in detail your storage, handling, disposal practices and procedures for pesticide, fertilizer, soil amendment, plant amendment, and anhydrous products being stored.

If your site stores bulk pesticides, your plan is required to include, but is not limited to the following:

Identity and telephone numbers of persons and agencies to be contacted in the event of a release;

Complete copy of the container label for each bulk pesticide stored at the facility;

Complete copy of the material safety data sheet (MSDS) for each bulk pesticide stored at the facility;

Procedures and equipment to be used to control and respond to a release and to recover released product;

Identification and location of each bulk pesticide container located at the facility, as well as the type of pesticide stored in each. (NOTE: The plan does not need to identify each individual mini-bulk container if it identifies a general location within the facility where all mini-bulks are stored.)

Location maps are effective tools for illustrating much of this information. See suggested format on the other side of this fact sheet.

Where should I keep the plan?

The incident response plan must be kept in a prominent location at the storage facility or business, accessible to all employees. We recommend that another copy of the plan be kept at a different location so that if an incident makes the site or plan inaccessible, you will still be able to obtain a copy of the plan.

If you store pesticides, you are also required to provide a copy of the plan to the local fire and police departments so they can appropriately plan for incident response at your facility.

All persons working with agricultural chemicals should be familiar with incident response, health and safety aspects of product labels and MSDS's. Experience at actual incident sites has shown that the most important information to have available during an incident are product labels, MSDS's, product inventory records and location of the product at the facility. Keep in mind that the incident response plan should be reviewed with all employees working with agricultural chemicals prior to each application season.

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