Strengthening Response and Recovery through Everyday Risk Management

Emergency managers routinely plan for incidents involving hazardous materials, infrastructure failures, contaminated debris, and disrupted utilities-yet many communities already manage these risks daily through environmental compliance programs. This session explores how municipal and county environmental compliance activities (hazardous materials management, wastewater and stormwater programs, solid and hazardous waste oversight, and related inspections) provide actionable intelligence that directly supports the NIMS mission areas and the National Preparedness Goal.
Attendees will learn how understanding a community's materials, processes, and waste streams improves hazard identification, responder safety, operational decision-making, and recovery timelines. The presentation will also highlight common preparedness and recovery capability gaps-such as disposal capacity, sampling resources, contractor availability, and regulatory bottlenecks-that can be identified before disasters occur by leveraging existing compliance data.
Designed for emergency management practitioners, this session offers practical strategies to integrate environmental staff, data, and programs into planning, exercises, and recovery readiness-without creating new programs or additional administrative burden.