12.3 Spill Management and Emergency Response
Key Takeaways
- Protect people first, then control the source, contain the spread, and clean up. Do not wash pesticide into storm drains, bar ditches, playas, or wells.
- Stop the leak only if it is safe: shut a valve, upright a jug, or overpack. Dike and absorb; spent absorbent is pesticide waste.
- OAC 35:30-17-92 requires telephone notice within 24 hours and written notice within three days to both ODEQ and ODAFF for uncontained spills of more than 10 gallons liquid concentrate, 25 pounds dry concentrate, or 50 gallons of tank mix; any uncontained spill or backflow into a public water supply is reported to ODAFF within 24 hours.
- Follow the label and SDS; call CHEMTREC or the National Response Center when those systems actually apply. When in doubt, notify ODAFF Consumer Protection Services.
- Keep a written spill plan on the truck and at the shop; emergency numbers include 911 and Poison Help 1-800-222-1222.
12.3 Spill Management and Emergency Response
Quick Answer: Protect people first. Then control the source, contain the spread, and clean up. Do not wash pesticide into a storm drain, bar ditch, playa, or well. OAC 35:30-17-92 sets Oklahoma's uncontained-spill reporting quantities and public-water rule. Follow the label and SDS. When in doubt, call ODAFF Consumer Protection Services (CPS). 911 for injuries and fire. Poison Help 1-800-222-1222 for exposure advice.
Protect people, then the three C's
A spill is not a housekeeping problem. It is an exposure event that can become a water event. Control, contain, clean up is the Core sequence. The sequence does not start with a hose.
Protect people first. Get bystanders, kids, restaurant staff, and unprotected crew out of the vapor and splash zone. Put on label PPE for concentrate before you step into the puddle. If someone is down, burned, or having trouble breathing, call 911. For swallowed, inhaled, or skin-exposed pesticide, call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 and have the label or SDS in your hand. Chapter 6 covers first aid; this section is the scene around the puddle.
Control means stop more product from leaving the container if it is safe. Upright the jug. Shut the nurse-tank valve. Plug the hole with a compatible pad. If the container is rupturing, the area is on fire, or you do not have the PPE, back out and let emergency responders take the source. A dead hero is not containment.
Contain means keep what already escaped from reaching a drain, well, ditch, or creek. Dike with soil, absorbent socks, or a shovel berm on the downhill side. Cover storm-drain inlets. Keep product out of the restaurant grease interceptor and out of the shop floor drain. On a farmstead, keep it out of the wellhead, the livestock tank overflow, and the playa. Do not rinse a parking-lot spill into the gutter "to make it look clean." That converts a small spill into a surface-water discharge.
Clean up means absorb, shovel, and bag. Sweep dry product; do not make it a tea. Use absorbent on liquids, scoop spent absorbent into labeled bags or drums, and store that debris as pesticide waste until you can apply it only if the label truly allows that reuse — which most spill debris will not — or dispose of it as the label, SDS, and Section 12.4 require. OAC 35:30-17-92(c) states that any person is responsible for all costs associated with cleanups resulting from pesticide spills in that person's operation. Cheap rinsing onto the street is not a cost-control method.
Oklahoma reporting quantities you can actually cite
Do not invent a homemade gallon number. OAC 35:30-17-92 is the Oklahoma pesticide spill rule reprinted in ODAFF's Combined Pesticide Law materials and in the AgPDES pesticide general permit:
- Uncontained spills of more than ten (10) gallons liquid or twenty-five (25) pounds dry weight of pesticide concentrate, or fifty (50) gallons of an application mixture (tank mix), shall be reported within twenty-four (24) hours by telephone and by written notice within three (3) days to both the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) (training text lists 405-702-5100 or 800-522-0206) and the Pesticide Section, ODAFF (training text lists 405-521-3864).
- All uncontained spills or backflow of any amount into a public water supply system, as defined by 27A O.S. § 2-6-101(10), shall be reported within twenty-four (24) hours to ODAFF.
Confirm live phone numbers on agency sites before you print a cab card; the legal triggers are the quantities and the dual notice, not a particular receptionist's extension.
Uncontained is the word that trips people. A leak that stays inside a dike or a lipped mix pad you control is not the same as concentrate that reached soil, a drain, or flowing water. When the product has left your control, treat the reporting rule as in play if you are over those amounts — and still clean up if you are under them. Smaller spills still require control, contain, and clean up. The label or SDS may demand notice below the OAC quantities. When in doubt, notify ODAFF CPS.
CHEMTREC (commonly 1-800-424-9300 on many SDS emergency lines) is a chemical-transportation emergency service. Call it when the SDS, label, or shipper instructions tell you to, or when you have a transportation incident those instructions cover. The National Response Center (NRC) (commonly 1-800-424-8802) receives certain federal release reports, including some Clean Water Act and CERCLA reportable-quantity events. This guide does not invent a pesticide-specific NRC pound number. Call the NRC when the SDS, label, or applicable federal rule requires it — not because a study guide guessed a gallon figure. OAC 35:30-17-92 is the Oklahoma pesticide telephone-and-letter duty you should be able to recite on Core.
The chart is the more than line in OAC 35:30-17-92(a): more than 10 gallons liquid concentrate, 25 pounds dry concentrate, or 50 gallons of tank mix. Below those amounts you still clean up, and you still report if the label, SDS, public-water paragraph, or a federal rule says so.
Keep a spill plan, and use Oklahoma pictures
Write a spill plan before the leak. Put it on the vehicle and at the shop. Include:
| Plan item | What to put on the card |
|---|---|
| Sequence | People, control, contain, clean up, report |
| Kit location | Where absorbent, PPE, shovel, and bags actually sit |
| Drain map | Storm inlets, shop floor drains, wellheads, grease interceptors |
| Oklahoma notice | OAC 35:30-17-92 quantities; ODEQ and ODAFF numbers; public-water any-amount rule |
| Medical | 911; Poison Help 1-800-222-1222 |
| Product identity | Where SDS and labels live |
| SDS-directed lines | CHEMTREC or NRC only when those instructions or federal rules apply |
Pickup-bed concentrate jug on a Norman street: upright if safe, absorbent on the pavement, cover the curb inlet, do not hose it. If the loss is over 10 gallons of concentrate and it is uncontained, start the 24-hour telephone clock to ODEQ and ODAFF.
Nurse-tank hose at a mix site near an alluvial well in Jackson County: shut the valve, dike away from the wellhead, keep rinse water out of the casing. A wellhead hit of any size is a water-resource emergency even if you are under the 10-gallon concentrate number; treat it as reportable to ODAFF and follow the label.
Category 7A restaurant in Tulsa: a bait or liquid spill in a kitchen hallway is a people-and-food problem first. Evacuate the splash zone, keep product off prep surfaces, and do not wash it toward a floor drain that leads to the sanitary sewer. Notify the manager. If public water was back-fed or contaminated, OAC 35:30-17-92(b) is a 24-hour ODAFF call for any amount.
Farm shed in a thunderstorm: a toppled drum that reached the gravel and is heading for the bar ditch is uncontained. Dike the downhill edge. Do not "dilute it with rain." Rain is transport, not cleanup.
Shop floor drain: if product reached a drain to sewer or septic, you may have both an OAC reporting problem and an ODEQ wastewater problem. Stop adding water. Call the agencies rather than guessing.
Keep the plan short enough that a new hire will use it. Practice once a year with an empty jug and a sock boom so the first real spill is not the first time someone looks for the absorbent.
A hose splits on a mix pad and concentrate starts toward a parking-lot storm drain. What is the correct first priority and cleanup method?
Which action turns a manageable Oklahoma spill into a water violation?
Under OAC 35:30-17-92, when must an uncontained pesticide spill be telephoned to both ODEQ and ODAFF within 24 hours, with written notice within three days?