What are Geographic Response Plans?

Oil spills pose a risk to sensitive natural, cultural, and economic resources. One important tool in our planning toolbox is the Geographic Response Plan (GRP). GRPs contain pre-identified strategies for specific areas of the state at risk from oil spills. These are pre-approved plans that guide early response actions during oil spills. A list of all Washington State GRPs, including those open for comprehensive updates, can be found online at OilSpills101.wa.gov.

GRP Updates:  Comprehensive vs. Interim

GRPs are periodically updated to ensure the information is relevant and up-to-date. These comprehensive updates require a lot of work and often take a year or two to complete. Work is coordinated with other state and federal agencies, tribes, industry partners, oil spill response professionals, and local communities.

GRPs Open for Comprehensive Updates

GRPs currently open for comprehensive updates are listed below, along with the contact information if you have questions or want to participate. Included are any comprehensive GRP updates published this quarter.

Interim GRP Updates during Winter 2025

Because a lot can change in a GRP planning area between comprehensive updates, Ecology is committed to conducting interim GRP updates when necessary. Examples of interim updates include improvements to response strategies resulting from lessons learned during oil spill drills or actual spills, updated contact information, changes to driving directions, and other response-enhancing edits. Ecology publishes interim updates to GRPs on a quarterly basis. Interim updates completed this quarter include the following:

  • Central Puget Sound — Updated Economic RAR; CPS-183 (new); GRD-4.0 (new); CPS-144 (new photo); CPS-11e (new photo); CPS-160-N (new contacts); CPS-14 (contacts updated); DWW-0.0 (removed)
  • Lower Columbia River — LCR-100.8R (changed from collection to exclusion); updated Response Contact Sheet
  • Cowlitz/Clark/Southwest Lewis — CWLZR-15.9L (new photo); updated Response Contact Sheet
  • Chehalis River — Updated Response Contact Sheet

Updates to Ecology’s GIS Maps

Ecology recently migrated to GIS Portal which means the links to the various GIS maps have changed. Along with the links below, the individual GRPs have been updated to include the new links embedded throughout our GRPs. Don’t forget to update your tools, bookmarks, and other places you may have links for the following maps:

Everyone has a Role in Improving the State’s GRPs

The oil industry regularly exercises oil spill contingency plans to ensure their readiness to respond to an oil spill. These exercises often involve the deployment of GRP strategies. Each deployment is an opportunity to validate and improve a response strategy’s effectiveness.

GRPs also rely on feedback from professional oil spill responders, natural resource agencies, tribes, and the public. This valuable feedback is reflected in either a comprehensive update or the interim update process.

If you have information or ideas that can make GRPs more effective, Ecology wants to know! Please email GRP feedback or questions to GRPs@ecy.wa.gov.  If you are visiting a response strategy site, you can use our GRP Strategy Assessment Form to help document your assessment. We thank you in advance for helping the Northwest Area Committee maintain a high level of readiness to respond to oil spills.