skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) in the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center(FRMAC) - Emergency Phase

Abstract

Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-5 requires all federal departments and agencies to adopt a National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) and use it in their individual domestic incident management and emergency prevention, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation programs and activities, as well as in support of those actions taken to assist state and local entities. This system provides a consistent nationwide template to enable federal, state, local, and tribal governments, private-sector, and nongovernmental organizations to work together effectively and efficiently to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity, including acts of catastrophic terrorism. This document identifies the operational concepts of the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center's (FRMAC) implementation of the NIMS/ICS response structure under the National Response Plan (NRP). The construct identified here defines the basic response template to be tailored to the incident-specific response requirements. FRMAC's mission to facilitate interagency environmental data management, monitoring, sampling, analysis, and assessment and link this information to the planning and decision staff clearly places the FRMAC in the Planning Section. FRMAC is not a mitigating resource for radiological contamination but is present to conduct radiological impact assessment for public dose avoidance.more » Field monitoring is a fact-finding mission to support this effort directly. Decisions based on the assessed data will drive public protection and operational requirements. This organizational structure under NIMS is focused by the mission responsibilities and interface requirements following the premise to provide emergency responders with a flexible yet standardized structure for incident response activities. The coordination responsibilities outlined in the NRP are based on the NIMS/ICS construct and Unified Command (UC) for management of a domestic incident. The NRP Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex (NUC) further provides requirements and protocols for coordinating federal government capabilities to respond to nuclear/radiological Incidents of National Significance (INS) and other radiological incidents. When a FRMAC is established, it operates under the parameters of NIMS as defined in the NRP. FRMAC and its operations have been modified to reflect NIMS/ICS concepts and principles and to facilitate working in a Unified Command structure. FRMAC is established at or near the scene of the incident to coordinate radiological monitoring and assessment and is established in coordination with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the coordinating agency; other federal agencies; and state, local, and tribal authorities. However, regardless of the coordinating agency designation, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) coordinates radiological monitoring and assessment activities for the initial phases of the offsite federal incident response through the Radiological Assistance Program (RAP) and FRMAC assets. Monitoring and assessment data are managed by FRMAC in an accountable, secure, and retrievable format. Monitoring data interpretations, including exposure rate contours, dose projections, and any requested radiological assessments are to be provided to the DHS; to the coordinating agency; and to state, local, and tribal government agencies.« less

Authors:
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Security Technologies, LLC
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE - National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
OSTI Identifier:
913065
Report Number(s):
DOE/NV/25946-179
TRN: US0800630
DOE Contract Number:
DE-AC52-06NA5946
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES; AVOIDANCE; CONTAMINATION; IMPLEMENTATION; MANAGEMENT; MITIGATION; MONITORING; NATIONAL GOVERNMENT; PLANNING; SAMPLING; SECURITY

Citation Formats

NSTec Environmental Restoration. Implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) in the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center(FRMAC) - Emergency Phase. United States: N. p., 2007. Web. doi:10.2172/913065.
Copy to clipboard
NSTec Environmental Restoration. Implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) in the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center(FRMAC) - Emergency Phase. United States. doi:10.2172/913065.
Copy to clipboard
NSTec Environmental Restoration. Sun . "Implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) in the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center(FRMAC) - Emergency Phase". United States. doi:10.2172/913065. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/913065.
Copy to clipboard
@article{osti_913065,
title = {Implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) in the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center(FRMAC) - Emergency Phase},
author = {NSTec Environmental Restoration},
abstractNote = {Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-5 requires all federal departments and agencies to adopt a National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) and use it in their individual domestic incident management and emergency prevention, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation programs and activities, as well as in support of those actions taken to assist state and local entities. This system provides a consistent nationwide template to enable federal, state, local, and tribal governments, private-sector, and nongovernmental organizations to work together effectively and efficiently to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity, including acts of catastrophic terrorism. This document identifies the operational concepts of the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center's (FRMAC) implementation of the NIMS/ICS response structure under the National Response Plan (NRP). The construct identified here defines the basic response template to be tailored to the incident-specific response requirements. FRMAC's mission to facilitate interagency environmental data management, monitoring, sampling, analysis, and assessment and link this information to the planning and decision staff clearly places the FRMAC in the Planning Section. FRMAC is not a mitigating resource for radiological contamination but is present to conduct radiological impact assessment for public dose avoidance. Field monitoring is a fact-finding mission to support this effort directly. Decisions based on the assessed data will drive public protection and operational requirements. This organizational structure under NIMS is focused by the mission responsibilities and interface requirements following the premise to provide emergency responders with a flexible yet standardized structure for incident response activities. The coordination responsibilities outlined in the NRP are based on the NIMS/ICS construct and Unified Command (UC) for management of a domestic incident. The NRP Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex (NUC) further provides requirements and protocols for coordinating federal government capabilities to respond to nuclear/radiological Incidents of National Significance (INS) and other radiological incidents. When a FRMAC is established, it operates under the parameters of NIMS as defined in the NRP. FRMAC and its operations have been modified to reflect NIMS/ICS concepts and principles and to facilitate working in a Unified Command structure. FRMAC is established at or near the scene of the incident to coordinate radiological monitoring and assessment and is established in coordination with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the coordinating agency; other federal agencies; and state, local, and tribal authorities. However, regardless of the coordinating agency designation, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) coordinates radiological monitoring and assessment activities for the initial phases of the offsite federal incident response through the Radiological Assistance Program (RAP) and FRMAC assets. Monitoring and assessment data are managed by FRMAC in an accountable, secure, and retrievable format. Monitoring data interpretations, including exposure rate contours, dose projections, and any requested radiological assessments are to be provided to the DHS; to the coordinating agency; and to state, local, and tribal government agencies.},
doi = {10.2172/913065},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2007},
month = {Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2007}
}
Copy to clipboard
Technical Report:
View Technical Report (0.10 MB)
DOI:  10.2172/913065
Save / Share:
Export Metadata
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.

  • In the event of a major radiological emergency, 17 federal agencies with various statutory responsibilities have agreed to coordinate their efforts at the emergency scene under the umbrella of the Federal Radiological Emergency Response plan (FRERP). This cooperative effort will assure the designated Lead Federal Agency (LFA) and the state(s) that all federal radiological assistance fully supports their efforts to protect the public. The mandated federal cooperation ensures that each agency can obtain the data critical to its specific responsibilities. This Overview of the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) Operations describes the FRMAC response activities to a majormore » radiological emergency. It also describes the federal assets and subsequent operational activities which provide federal radiological monitoring and assessment of the off-site areas. These off-site areas may include one or more affected states.« less

  • The purpose of this Management Overview of the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) is to explain the federal preparation for a radiological accident and to describe the subsequent response activities which provide radiological monitoring and assessment outside the boundaries of the monitoring which support the radiological accident site. In the event of a radiological accident, federal agencies with various statutory responsibilities have agreed to coordinate their efforts at the accident scene under the umbrella of the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan (FRERP). This cooperative effort will assure the state(s) and the Lead Federal Agency (LFA) that all federalmore » technical assistance is fully supporting their efforts to protect the public and will provide these monitoring results in a working data center for immediate use by the state(s) and LFA decision makers. The federal agencies do not relinquish their statutory responsibilities. However, the mandated federal cooperation ensures that each agency can obtain the data critical to its specific responsibility.« less

  • The purpose of this Management Overview of the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) is to explain the federal preparation for a radiological accident and to describe the subsequent response activities which provide radiological monitoring and assessment outside the boundaries of the monitoring which support the radiological accident site. In the event of a radiological accident, federal agencies with various statutory responsibilities have agreed to coordinate their efforts at the accident scene under the umbrella of the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan (FRERP). This cooperative effort will assure the state(s) and the Lead Federal Agency (LFA) that all federalmore » technical assistance is fully supporting their efforts to protect the public and will provide these monitoring results in a working data center for immediate use by the state(s) and LFA decision makers. The federal agencies do not relinquish their statutory responsibilities. However, the mandated federal cooperation ensures that each agency can obtain the data critical to its specific responsibility.« less

  • In the event of a major radiological emergency, 17 federal agencies with various statutory responsibilities have agreed to coordinate their efforts at the emergency scene under the umbrella of the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan. This cooperative effort will ensure that all federal radiological assistance fully supports their efforts to protect the public. the mandated federal cooperation ensures that each agency can obtain the data critical to its specific responsibilities. This Overview of Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) describes the FRMAC response activities to a major radiological emergency. It also describes the federal assets and subsequent operational activitiesmore » which provide federal radiological monitoring and assessment of the off-site areas.« less

  • ; ; ; ...
    The importance and need for full compliant implementation of NIMS nationwide was clearly demonstrated during the Hurricane Katrina event, which was clearly expressed in Secretary Chertoff's October 4, 2005 letter addressed to the State's governors. It states, ''Hurricane Katrina was a stark reminder of how critical it is for our nation to approach incident management in a coordinated, consistent, and efficient manner. We must be able to come together, at all levels of government, to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from any emergency or disaster. Our operations must be seamless and based on common incident management doctrine, becausemore » the challenges we face as a nation are far greater than capabilities of any one jurisdiction.'' The NIMS is a system/architecture for organizing response on a ''national'' level. It incorporations ICS as a main component of that structure (i.e., it institutionalizes ICS in NIMS). In a paper published on the NIMS Website, the following statements were made: ''NIMS represents a core set of doctrine, principles, terminology, and organizational processes to enable effective, efficient and collaborative incident management at all levels. To provide the framework for interoperability and compatibility, the NIMS is based on a balance between flexibility and standardization.'' Thus the NIC is challenged with the need to adopt quality SDO generated standards to support NIMS compliance, but in doing so maintain the flexibility necessary so that response operations can be tailored for the specific jurisdictional and geographical needs across the nation. In support of this large and complex challenge facing the NIC, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) was asked to provide technical support to the NIC, through their DHS Science and Technology ? Standards Portfolio Contract, to help identify, review, and develop key standards for NIMS compliance. Upon examining the challenge, the following general process appears to be a reasonable approach for identifying and establishing existing standards that would be applicable to NIMS compliance. The suggested generalized steps to establishing existing SDO generated standards for NIMS compliance are: (1) establish search criteria from the NIMS and its support documents, (2) search SDO databases to identify key existing nationally and/or internationally recognized standards that have potential application to NIMS compliance needs, (3) review the identified standards against the specific component needs of the NIMS, (4) identify the pertinent aspects/components of those identified standards that clearly address specific NIMS compliance needs, (5) establish a process to adopt the pertinent standards, which includes the generation of formalized FEMA Guidance that identifies the specific NIMS component compliance needs addressed in the respective standard, (6) develop performance criteria for which to measure compliance with the identified NIMS components addressed by the respective adopted standard, and (7) adopt the standard, publish the guidance and performance criteria, and incorporate it into routine FEMA/NIC NIMS management operations. This review process will also help identify real gaps in standards for which new NIMS specific standards should be developed. To jump start this process and hopefully identify some key ''low hanging fruit'' standards the NIC could use to begin such a process, a panel of first-responder experts (familiar with the current standards of common use in the first-responder community) from various response disciplines was formed and a workshop held. The workshop included a pre-workshop information gathering process. This report discusses the workshop and its findings in detail.« less