§2225 Decontamination and Disposal Standards and Plans

Summary

The EPA Administrator, working with the heads of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Agriculture, must help state, local, and tribal governments get ready for, respond to, clean up after, and recover from threats to farms or the food supply. They must create and share clear standards and step-by-step protocols for cleaning, clearing, and recovering after specific harmful agents and foreign animal diseases. EPA, HHS, and Agriculture must also make model plans for decontaminating people, equipment, and buildings, and for disposing of large numbers of infected animals, plants, or food. EPA and the other agencies must run exercises at least once a year—when possible as part of the national exercise program—to test those plans and find weaknesses. Using the exercise results, they must review and update the plans at least every two years. They must build plans in an order that first covers the highest-risk biological, chemical, and radiological agents, then those that could cause the biggest economic damage to agriculture and food, and then those that are hardest to clean up.