Environmental Management Systems for Pork Producers

4.4.7 Emergency Preparedness and Response

Prevention of pollution is a goal of the EMS. Unfortunately, events such as fire, catastrophic mortality loss, flooding, lagoon breach and spills occasionally occur, resulting in environmental impacts. Identification of potential emergencies and response planning can eliminate or reduce loss, injury and environmental impact. 

Step 1

• Identify potential emergencies by listing different emergencies that could occur at your farm and develop directions on how to respond to each of them. Include contact information. Consider using existing emergency action plans as required by law and add additional scenarios as needed. 

See the link below for an example of an emergency action plan.

• Emergency Action Plan

• Consider posting emergency contact information for non-farm personnel. For example:

ATTENTION: NON-FARM PERSONNEL

IN THE EVENT OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCY
PLEASE CALL 
(xxx) xxx-xxxx

(date)xx/xx/xx 

• It is recommended that the emergency response plan be reviewed at least once every three years, or after every occurrence of an accident or emergency situation.

Step 2

• Write a procedure that designates the personnel responsible for developing, maintaining and testing emergency action plans. The responsible party within this procedure is often the management representative or EMS coordinator.

See the link below for an example of an emergency preparedness and response procedure. 

Emergency Response Procedure

(This procedure and plan can be downloaded and customized by replacing the red highlighted areas with the specifics for your farm. You can incorporate your procedure for this element within your EMS manual or maintain it as a separate document. A small farm may decide to incorporate language within the manual that addresses this element as opposed to having separate documents.)

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