Welcome to the Addison County, Vermont,
Emergency Planning Committee’s Website!

Some Background

Vermont has 13 Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) districts that operate under the State Emergency Response Commission. LEPC #8, also known as the Addison County Emergency Planning Committee (ACEPC) covers 21 member towns in Addison County,Vermont.

ACEPC is a local organization whose responsibilities are established by Vermont law (Title 20 VSA, § 32) and Federal laws (Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act [EPCRA] §§ 301–303, 40 CFR Part 355, and the Superfund Amendment and Re-Authorization Act [SARA], Title III). EPCRA was designed to provide local governments, first responders, and the public with information about possible chemical hazards in their communities. It requires those who have certain amounts of chemicals to report them to the state, local fire departments, and to the LEPC on an annual basis. SARA Title III deals with emergency planning for responding to chemical accidents, and requires that emergency response plans be developed for responding to chemical emergencies. This responsibility was mandated to be handled on local levels through the establishment of LEPCs.

ACEPC Today

While the LEPCs’ statutory responsibilities were initially limited to hazardous materials, ACEPC has focused on an All-Hazards approach to its duties, ensuring that planning and exercises deal with a variety of emergencies. ACEPC has always understood that, since most disasters include some sort of hazardous materials, all local emergency planning is best done from a global perspective.

In 2006 the Vermont Legislature amended Title 20 to, among other things, reflect the changed emphasis to “all hazards:”

Sec. 3. 20 V.S.A. § 2 is amended to read:
§2. DEFINITIONS
As used in this chapter,:
(1) “All-hazards” means any natural disaster, health or disease-related emergency, accident, civil insurrection, use of weapons of mass destruction, terrorist or criminal incident, radiological incident, significant event, and designated special event, any of which may occur individually, simultaneously, or in combination and which poses a threat or may pose a threat, as determined by the commissioner or designee, to property or public safety in Vermont.

Members/Participants

ACEPC encourages representation from a broad spectrum of area groups, including any interested individual or organization. Members and participants include fire departments; emergency medical services; local, county, and state law enforcement; media; Addison County Regional Planning Commission; Porter Medical Center; local businesses; Vermont Department of Health, District Office; animal health & welfare professionals; town government and emergency management personnel; CERT; and other public-safety organizations. We encourage you to get in touch if you are interested. Meetings are held monthly (with the exception of August) at the Public Safety Building/VSP barracks on Route 7 in New Haven.

Disclaimer

ACEPC's website is designed for informational and educational purposes only. The ACEPC, its members, and the website editor shall not be liable for any errors in the content, or for any action taken in reliance thereon. Links to other websites do not imply agreement with nor approval of all content found on the website. ACEPC exercises no control over external sites and any information found is presented only for educational interest.

top