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Georgia

Emergency Response and complaint records

Agency Georgia Environmental Protection Division

Georgia Emergency Response and complaint records

Two records of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) sit outside its cleanup lists: the complaints in its Complaint Tracking System (CTS), which has a public search, and the spill and release calls taken by its Emergency Response Program. The program operates from EPD's district offices and responds to spills and releases of oil or hazardous materials around the clock.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 does not name state spill or complaint lists among its standard record sources. The federal counterpart of a state spill list is the emergency response record described on the ERNS page. Georgia's records still matter, because a complaint or a spill call can be the only record of an event that never became a cleanup case.

  • The complaint search has a start date and a filter. EPD says the Complaint Tracking System's Public Inquiry Portal includes information for all complaints it received from third parties after January 1, 1998, and for which its investigation of the complaint has concluded. A complaint still under investigation is outside that description, and so is anything before 1998.
  • Spill calls are recorded and are public records. EPD says all incoming calls to the State Warning Point are digitally and voice recorded and are subject to release under the Georgia Open Records Act, and that anonymous calls cannot be accepted for that reason.
  • The line is for emergencies. EPD sends non-emergency calls to the appropriate branch or district office, and general questions and complaints to the district office serving the county. So a complaint about a property may have gone to a district office and not to the spill line.
  • Hazardous waste releases have a second door. EPD says its hazardous waste programs also investigate spills and releases involving hazardous waste, and that its Abandoned Sites Unit works with Emergency Response on the expedited removal of abandoned regulated substances. EPD's hazardous site guidance excludes a release cleaned up within 30 days of discovery from release notification, so check whether a slower cleanup was reported as a release notification.

The Emergency Response Program also investigates high priority complaints, maintains Right-to-Know information under SARA Title III, serves as staff to the State Emergency Response Commission, and implements the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. EPD sends questions about that Act to the Emergency Response Manager.

What the record shows

The Emergency Response page links a spill and release reporting flowchart, revised February 2010, and a document it describes as the Emergency Response Team release and remediation report, revised May 2026. Ask whether a release and remediation report exists for an incident. The pages read do not link a public list of spill reports.

EPD has seven district offices. Its district offices page names them by region and city: Coastal (Brunswick), East Central (Augusta), Mountain (Atlanta), Mountain (Cartersville), Northeast (Athens), Southwest (Albany) and West Central (Macon). Each links a list of the counties it serves.

Where to look a site up

  • Search for a Complaint, EPD's link to the Complaint Tracking System's Public Inquiry Portal, on its eServices page.
  • The Emergency Response Program operates from the district offices. The pages read do not say which office keeps the record of a spill call. The offices and their phone numbers are on EPD's District Offices page.
  • To report an environmental emergency, the 24-hour line is 800-241-4113. The Emergency Response office line is 770-387-4900.

Getting the file

The pages read do not describe a file room for Emergency Response records. Requests under the Georgia Open Records Act go through EPD's Open Records Request Portal, and EPD says fees are assessed after the first 15 minutes for the search, retrieval, duplication and supervised inspection of documents. Give the date, the location and the district.

Sources

Georgia Environmental Protection Division pages, read October 7, 2026:

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