The Massachusetts Contingency Plan (acronym alert: MCP) is the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s (another acronym: MassDEP’s) regulation which describes the requirements for assessing and remediating spills and releases of oil and hazardous materials (another one: OHM!).
Being both a government regulation and very long (the PDF version is 613 pages), it is just chock-full of long, repetitive phrases just waiting to made into fun little acronyms by connoisseurs of the trade.
Here’s Omni Environmental Group’s top 5 MCP acronyms:
#5 PSNC – This is a new acronym, just added when the MCP (acronym) was revised earlier this year. No clear consensus has developed whether it’s sounded out as P-S-N-C or pronounced “p-snick or “persnick”. We’re pulling for p-snick. Either way, this is what every client wants sooner rather than later – a Permanent Solution with No Conditions.
#4 ADD – Not attention deficit disorder but Average Daily Dose. It’s the OHM (! acronym) that you’re exposed to, like it or not. It’s one of the many, many calculations that are part of a site-specific risk assessment. Oddly, it’s sounded out as A-D-D and not just pronounced “ADD” as in “what’s your ADD?”.
#3 RAM – Not as in battering and not as in the male companion of a ewe (which, by the way, is the only time the word ewe will appear in an Omni Environmental Group blog). It’s the ever popular Release Abatement Measure – an expedited path to performing remediation at a site.
#2 URAM – A Utility Related Abatement Measure and a close cousin of the RAM. Pronounced you-RAM, it’s just fun to say. It’s used to allow utility contractors to address contamination they encounter during the installation of, what else, utilities with a minimum of fuss and bother.
And our #1 favorite MCP acronym:
MOHML – Pronounced “molema” although variations exist. No one spells it out M-O-H-M-L. It would be easier just to say the Massachusetts Oil and Hazardous Materials List which is what it stands for. These are the concentrations and quantities of OHM (! again) which, if spilled or detected at a site, will make the MCP (!) regulation apply to you. You want to be less than the MOHML. Needless to say (although we will anyway), if you’re not less than the MOHML, contact Omni Environmental Group immediately.
We hope you enjoyed our favorite acronyms of the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (no acronym this time). There’s more than enough acronyms in the environmental consulting field that this will be an occasional feature of the Omni Environmental Group blog in the future. And yes, feel free to acronym us as OEG if you want.
If you have a favorite environmental acronym that you want to nominate, leave a comment below or contact us at Info@OmniEG.com!
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