2. a. The Department of Environmental Protection, with the concurrence of the Department of Health and the State Office of Emergency Management in the Division of State Police in the Department of Law and Public Safety, shall develop a comprehensive plan for the standardization and coordination of county hazardous material response programs to effectively address all incidents involving hazardous materials, including, but not limited to, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents.

The plan shall include procedures for State, county, and local response to incidents involving hazardous materials, including, but not limited to, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents, and planning, training, exercising, and equipment requirements designed to assure that local responders have the capacity, competency and capability to protect the public from exposure to those materials, and shall include the adoption of environmental health performance standards and standards of administrative procedures for county hazardous materials response.

b. The certified local health agency in each county shall develop, in consultation with their county office of emergency management, a comprehensive, coordinated county-wide emergency response program for incidents involving hazardous materials, including, but not limited to, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents for the county that is consistent with the plan developed by the department pursuant to subsection a. of this section.

c. In any county in which there is no certified local health agency, the board of chosen freeholders shall designate a local health agency from the county to develop, in consultation with the county office of emergency management and the Department of Health, a comprehensive, coordinated county-wide emergency response program for incidents involving hazardous materials, including, but not limited to, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents for the county that is consistent with the plan developed by the department pursuant to subsection a. of this section.

L.2005, c.3, s.2; amended 2012, c.17, s.329.