NASTTPO members include state, territorial, tribal, and local government employees with Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) program responsibilities, such as health, occupational safety, first response, environmental, and emergency management agencies.

This year’s annual NASTTPO conference was held in late April in Salt Lake City, Utah. More than 100 people attended this national conference, representing emergency planners from roughly 35 different states and several territories and tribes.

Brianne Connolly, the CAMEO program manager in OR&R’s Emergency Response Division, provided attendees with an overview of the CAMEO software suite, a set of tools to help emergency planners and responders with hazardous chemical releases. She summarized the changes in the suite releases from the past year, as well as discussing future plans for the suite.

One of the programs in the suite, the ALOHA® hazard model, is undergoing a major redesign that will modernize the look and function of the software and make it easier to use. In her presentation, Brianne included early prototype screenshots for the revised ALOHA, highlighting aspects of the program that will change and what will stay the same. Conference attendees were given the opportunity during the multi-day conference to test out the early access version and provide valuable feedback to the CAMEO team on the revised design. This new version of ALOHA is planned for release this summer.

Other conference speakers presented on special interest topics such as lessons learned from a lithium ion battery fire, cryogenic nitrogen safety and response improvements in the poultry industry, an overview of an integrated commodity flow study and planning effort that used the CAMEO software, a discussion of tribal EPCRA planning efforts and experiences, and an innovative approach to improving grant administration at the state level. Speakers from several federal organizations also provided agency and regulatory updates.

In addition to the main conference sessions, attendees also had the option to participate in several additional half-day events: an introductory training session on EPCRA and a discussion of how to incorporate EPCRA into your all-hazards planning efforts; a specialized, multi-speaker track focused solely on aspects of the State Emergency Response Commissions; and an in-depth training session expanding on the earlier commodity flow study presentation and how to leverage many data sources along with the CAMEO software suite to complete various types of emergency planning.