About

Established to meet the requirements of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), also known as the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act (SARA Title III), each county in Tennessee is designated as an Emergency Planning District with a LEPC.

The U.S. Congress passed EPCRA in 1986 after a chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, which caused widespread death and illness. The Bhopal accident raised concerns about a lack of planning and preparation for a similar accident in America. EPCRA is designed to inform communities about chemicals and chemical hazards present and transported in a community, involve the community in developing emergency planning and response measures, help identify facilities that might be subject to the law, and assure implementation of the EPCRA law.

The EPCRA law provides an infrastructure at state and local levels to plan for chemical emergencies. Facilities that have spilled hazardous materials, or that store, use or release certain chemicals are subject to various reporting requirements. This information is available to help the public become better informed about potentially dangerous chemicals in their community.

EPCRA gives the public the explicit right to know about chemical hazards in communities. Anyone has a right to see and get copies of the Tier Two reports (chemical storage reports), facility emergency plans, written follow-up reports, regional emergency plans, and Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS which list chemical properties) with information that a facility has provided to their LEPC.

The LEPC is a voluntary organization for emergency response planning. Under EPCRA, an LEPC is the focal point for chemical emergency response planning and implementation in a community. The LEPC's key responsibilities include:

  • Assisting local governments in developing hazardous materials emergency response plans,
  • Receiving emergency release and hazardous chemical inventory information submitted by local facilities,
  • Processing requests from the public for information on hazardous chemicals in the community.

LEPC membership is broad and may include representatives from: elected state and local officials, emergency management, law enforcement, fire service, local health, emergency medical service, local media, community groups and industry.

The Anderson County LEPC is the local point of contact for the public to receive information on storage/locations of chemicals, types of chemicals and hazards associated with those chemicals. This means local people are making local decisions about how to plan for, train for and respond to chemical emergencies in our community.

Please contact us if you have questions or would like to learn more about the Anderson County LEPC