MassDEP explains how residents should report oil, hazardous-material spills

Deneen Simpson, director of environmental justice at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and Kathy Kiley, MassDEP’s emergency planning and response coordinator, briefed the public on how to report oil and hazardous-material spills and what the department does after notification.

MassDEP responds to spills that threaten public safety, health or the environment — including heating oil, gasoline and hazardous chemicals — and maintains a 24/7 on-call emergency response staff in regional offices to investigate and manage cleanups. “Our mission is to protect public safety, health, and the environment,” Kiley said.

The department operates a dedicated hotline at (888) 304-1133 for reporting emergencies and fields calls through regional offices in Woburn, Worcester, Lakeville and Springfield. Kiley said the on-call staff “drive a special emergency response vehicle that has some lights and sirens, and it carries equipment” for immediate containment and initial response. MassDEP also deploys monitoring equipment to assess air safety and can call private cleanup contractors to assist with remediation.

For oil-on-water incidents, Kiley described MassDEP’s network of oil spill trailers: “These trailers contain special equipment, again, for being able to respond to oil spills, on water.” The agency places trailers in 71 coastal communities and 12 inland communities along rivers and ponds.

MassDEP works with local responders and state and federal partners, Kiley said. Fire departments and local boards of health are often first on scene; the state Department of Fire Services hazmat teams respond to very large incidents; and the United States Coast Guard handles marine spill responses when a vessel is involved.

The department assigns each spill a unique release tracking number, or RTN, which people can use to look up the location, responsible party, material released, estimate of quantity, and cleanup actions on the MassDEP website’s contaminated-property search. “Now with that number, you can find out all sorts of information,” Kiley said. She added that searches can also be done by street address or by town if callers do not have an RTN.

If people encounter a possible spill — a leaking home heating-oil tank, visible fuel on a roadway, or abandoned barrels — Kiley advised contacting the local fire department or calling MassDEP’s hotline and providing details about what was observed, when and where. She noted MassDEP staff are trained and available year-round to respond.

For follow-up questions or language assistance, Kiley provided a contact: kathykiley@mass.gov, and pointed listeners to the MassDEP website’s “Find out about contaminated property” search tool for records on individual spills.

Less critical details: the briefing emphasized immediate contact with local emergency responders and use of the RTN or location-based search for tracking cleanup status; no regulatory changes or new funding were announced during the session.