This ERTP course is open to our Federal, State, Local and Tribal partners, with On-Scene Coordinators (OSC’s) and U.S. Coast Guard Staff having priority registration preference.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This 5-day course is designed primarily for On-Scene Coordinators (OSCs) from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state agencies, and other first responders is delivered at the EPA ERT Warehouse in Erlanger, Kentucky.  The goal of this course is to have participants learn then demonstrate containment and recovery techniques for an inland oil spill in either a fast or slow water environment.  Participants will learn boater safety; operate boats and deploy containment boom on lakes or rivers; provide protection to shorelines and sensitive areas; establish an oil recovery site; and install weirs, underflow dams and filter fences on streams.

This course will be delivered in-person.  Instructional methods include classroom instruction, case studies, and primarily on-water field work.

After completion of the course, the participants will be able to demonstrate or discuss small boat safety and operations, various methods of containment boom deployment and anchoring, recovery site selection and operations, and health and safety issues relevant to oil spill response and recovery operations.  All this will be based on the topics presented, situations covered, and suitability of the selected location(s) for delivery.

Course instructors may include current and former federal and state OSCs who may also serve as technical advisors in oil spill control and cleanup.  Other instructors include experienced oil spill responders from the public and private sectors.

Class size is limited to 30 students. 

Continuing Education Units: 4.0

Participants must complete all modules for all days of the course to receive the course completion certificate.

This course includes hands-on field activities that can be strenuous.

COURSE PARTICIPATION NOTES**

**Attendees will need to wear appropriate attire for fieldwork and on-water operations.  This includes appropriate work gloves, eye protection, footwear, and outerwear for foul weather.  Attendees are encouraged to bring their own sunscreen, insect repellant, and Personal Flotation Device (PFD) since supplies will be limited.*

COURSE MATERIALS

In compliance with Executive Order 13589 - Promoting Efficient Spending, Section 5; the ERTP will not be regularly printing or providing students hard copies of the course materials. The general course agenda is found at ertpvu.org.

QUESTIONS

For general information, contact the Registrar by telephone at 513-251-7669 or via e-mail at ertp-registrar2@tetratech.com. 

For technical details related to course content, including tailoring of course content, contact the EPA Oil Course Technical Lead – Fred Stroud by telephone at 702-784-8007 or via e-mail at stroud.fred@epa.gov. 

For all other details related to ERTP contractual matters, courses, as well as EPA's 5170 processing & approvals for this course, etc. contact ERTP staff at:

• Shelly Norland at 702-784-8004, norland.shelly@epa.gov, and
• Sean Gavlas at 702-784-8004, gavlas.sean@epa.gov

Unless otherwise specified, THIS COURSE, AND OTHER ERTP COURSES, IS NOT OPEN TO CONSULTANTS, CONTRACTORS, OR ANY PRIVATE ENTITIES.
*This course is offered free of charge to all registrants who are confirmed to attend.*

IMPORTANT NOTICES – Applicable to all ERTP courses :

1. ERTP’s receipt of a Trainex course registration is a Registration Request, it is not a Guaranteed Enrollment in the Course. All ERTP training courses require applicant registration thru the Trainex system. Last minute course arrivals without prior ERTP Trainex course registration approval is not permitted. Before ERTP issues final approval to deliver any course and/or any EPA offices incurring expenses for the training event (including but not limited to EPA staff travel TA’s and/or ERTP training contractor expenses incurred), all EPA mandatory pre-approvals must all be met. The pre-approvals include (but are not limited to) the following:
   
   • Training location’s availability;
   • COVID status and/or other COVID Guidelines in effect for the location, as well as staff;
   • Agency limitations, scrutiny, and approvals of ‘Conference Spending Requirements (known as the “5170”)’ for the specific training course(s) scheduled delivery timeframe;
   • Weather (blizzard, hurricane, etc);
   • Contractual number of available course training slots;
   • EPA training location staff having priority registration over all other registrations; and/or
   • Hosting site Training Coordinator approval.
   
   In the event a course is subsequently postponed or canceled, or notification of registration cancellation is received, all EPA travel arrangements (airline/car rental/hotel) should be canceled in a timely manner. Registered students will receive a notification via email if/when a course is postponed and/or cancelled.
    
2. For in-person course deliveries, confirmed course registered participants must abide by all facility physical access requirements for the location (examples: check-in at the security gate, Federal ID, Government PIV/CAC cards, photo id’s, etc.). If applicable for the course or location, restrictions may apply to non-citizens and acceptable identification may be required for facility entry.

**IMPORTANT please carefully review all course prerequisite pre-registration details:  

Erlanger, Kentucky – September 22-26, 2025, Training course times:  Daily from 0800 through 1700 hours Eastern**

This course is open to EPA Staff only who are approved to attend.

Registration will be limited to 30 participants.  At this time all course registrations received will be waitlisted that will be processed first-come-first serve.  Once a registration is approved, the applicant will receive a confirmed enrollment email notification (usually in the form of a confirmed Outlook email calendar event (that is not identified as “Hold the Date”)

As always, cost savings approaches are encouraged as much as possible, For instance sharing rental vehicles; preferably one vehicle is shared for participants from the same Region; a few staff will have GOV’s available for ridesharing; suggested to meet in the hotel lobby for ridesharing; etc.

Feedback received identified the hotel location to the training is better suited to transportation, with walking distance over 2 miles.  A map of the area is attached.

To achieve the goal of providing an equitable distribution of training to the U.S. EPA Regions, one or two training course slots are provided to each U.S. EPA region.  The ERTP Contracting Officer Representatives (COR’s) will provide for final approval to adjust the final enrolled participant roster, from among both registered and waitlisted applicants. Formal enrollment decisions will be confirmed with the registered participants by email 2-3 weeks prior to course delivery.  Additionally, the required pre-requisites below are applicable to this training course:

1)   THIS COURSE IS FOR U.S. EPA ONLY, with On-Scene Coordinators (OSC’s) having priority registration preference for this course.

2)   Pre-registrations are now accepted for this course.  The intent is for participation in this course to be equitable across all EPA Regions.  Therefore, preference is for the POC’s at Regions 1 through 10 to identify one or two Regional staff (preferably OSC’s) to be pre-registered for the course.  Regions may add additional “to be waitlisted” staff names to be on standby (in the event the primary staff selected cannot attend).

Region points of contact to consolidate and submit one or two Region pre-registration staff names by emailing the ERTP COR’s at:  norland.shelly@epa.gov and gavlas.sean@epa.gov as soon as possible.  As needed, substitutions can be made later.

Note: Upon receipt from the Region POC, all pre-registrations will occur through Trainex & pre-registrants will receive a subsequent “HOLD the TRAINING DATE” Outlook Calendar event in their inbox that contains the required prerequisite pre-registration details.

3)   Although there is no training/tuition cost for this course, all EPA Regions, EPA Program Offices, EPA Partner Federal or other agencies are responsible for participant travel & per diem costs.

4)   IMPORTANT:  Travel Authorizations, Vouchers & Training SF-182 forms- Because the required EPA 5170 pre-approval process is underway for this course, a site-specific project code will be assigned and provided to course pre-registrants at a later date that must be entered pror to approval on the travel authorization (TA) and/or travel voucher prior to travel document approval and funding.  This is also applicable to training (SF-182) forms.

IMPORTANT NOTICE – Actions required by EPA staff for the items that are specific to this training event/course:

Conference Spending Requirements (known as the “5170”) -Applicable to all ERTP in-person courses & training dates– All EPA staff travel spending will be closely monitored/scrutinized for 5170 cost-monitoring requirements.  Travel spending includes all funds to be paid for by EPA. The 5170 conference spending requirement is not applicable to participants external to EPA, where EPA is not funding travel.

EPA travel spending “Project Code for this training event: The unique project code for this training event is ME0404OR****

Planning TA’s– For registration requests received, approved planning TA’s are ok.  The use of the assigned EPA Conference Code(s) identified above are emphasized on the Trainex registration pages for each respective course for the accounting section of the Concur Travel Authorization (add in Site ID).  Accurate conference codes identified on approved TA’s are required to assist us in determining a close estimate to ensure that we don’t break the 5170 ceiling ($ 100K).  For staff registered for sequential training weeks on the same TA, then both OCFO-approved unique conference codes must be used at a 50/50% flat rate. Your office FCO can assist staff with adding conference codes prior to TA approval routing.

Lodging/Block of rooms– TBD, will be announced/provided at a later date**  Once the room blocks are available, the details will be transmitted to staff that have submitted a waitlisted registration.  The details will also be posted to the course registration pages for future course registration requests received.  Once the room block details are available, staff with a previously waitlisted registration should plan to immediately reserve lodging for the room block details to be provided.

Group SF-182– TBD, will be announced/provided at a later date**.  The group SF-182 will be available as a courtesy for course registration requests received in Trainex. The group SF-182 helps justify the use of your organization’s extramural ‘training’ funds to pay for lodging, lodging tax, and M&IE costs.

****Participants are responsible for ensuring this code, once it is assigned, is used in the Site Project field under the Accounting tab in Concur. This code must be used for all travel authorizations, travel vouchers, and local travel vouchers related to this specific training course event. When  the code is shown as “TBD”, upon receipt of OCFO’s approval this webpage will be updated to add the approved code. For TA’s approved in advance, it is the traveler’s responsibility to ensure the TA is amended to add the correct project code(s) and/or MUST be added to the final Travel Voucher.  For some back-to-back separately delivered courses where travel occurs on a single TA/Voucher, then two different OCFO-approved unique project codes will be required at a flat 50%/50% split.  If needed, your FCO/Funds Certifying Official can provide assistance to ensure project code(s) are entered correctly in Concur.

****Note: ERTP’s training contractors are NOT involved in EPA’s internal 5170 conference spending processes or approvals. All 5170 related questions are to be forwarded to the Region course POC, or Region Training Coordinator, and/or the EPA ERTP Contracting Officer Representatives (COR’s).

QUESTIONS

For general information, contact the Registrar by telephone at 513-251-7669 or via e-mail at ertp-registrar2@tetratech.com. 

For technical details related to course content, contact the EPA Oil Course Technical Lead – Fred Stroud by telephone at 702-784-8007 or via e-mail at stroud.fred@epa.gov. 

For all other details related to ERTP contractual matters, courses, and the EPA 5170 approval process through ERTP, etc. contact ERTP staff at:

• Shelly Norland at 702-784-8004, norland.shelly@epa.gov, and
• Sean Gavlas at 702-784-8004, gavlas.sean@epa.gov@epa.gov