DISPATCHES

DISPATCHES

Bill computerizes haz-mat transportation recordkeeping

The House of Representatives is considering a bipartisan bill that would regulate the transportation of hazardous materials. H.R. 2584 proposes a telecommunications central data reporting and retrieval system for haz-mat shipments to replace the current DOT placard system.

Under the new system, in the event of a spill, the first responders, whether firefighters or law enforcement officers, would enter the tanker number or license plate number into the computer. The computer would retrieve what information has been input on the chemical load—what it is, what protective clothing to wear, evacuation procedures, and so on. All emergency responders need is access to a computer and they can link up to the system. “You can link up through a standard phone, cellular phone, or satellite, so in the event of an earthquake such as the one in San Francisco, if the phone lines are down you can still receive information,” explains Frederick Nesbitt, director of governmental affairs for the LAFF, one of the bill’s supporters.

Manufacturers and shippers would be charged a fee per shipment —the amount would be determined by the DOT—and the service would be free of charge to responders. The bill mandates that excess money go for training firefighters, purchasing equipment, and establishing national haz-mat training certification standards. If passed, the bill would make it mandatory for manufacturers to enter data and constantly update information or face severe penalties. A computer firm would be hired to maintain the system.

Nesbitt says the bill would make it easier for manufacturers because it eliminates the paperwork and placards. “Fifty percent of the time the placards are either missing or inaccurate,” Nesbitt explains. ‘If a truck burns, it is dangerous for emergency responders to go inside to retrieve the paperwork in order to find out what load the truck is carrying.”

Manufacturers, however, have voiced objection to the bill. They say it is unnecessary, but Nesbitt says they have other, unspoken objections: “For one, every time the computer is accessed, it means there has been a spill or an incident. This way the public will see who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Also, people will be able to see exactly what chemicals are traveling through their community. Further, a tracking system is built in. Manufacturers won’t be able to deny illegal dumping allegations. They must enter data when a shipment leaves and arrives at its destination. The computer can calculate how long the trip takes. Any discrepancies will send up a signal.” Such a system is a good way of recordkeeping for environmental impact, Nesbitt adds.

Amtrak sues department after fatal collision

Amtrak is suing the Catlett (VA) Volunteer Fire Department for damages incurred from a collision at an unguarded crossing in Fauquier County, Virginia on September 28, which killed two firefighters. Three firefighters, 10 Amtrak employees, and 68 passengers were injured when the pumper started across the tracks and was struck behind the pump panel by the train. Twelve of the 16 train cars derailed on impact, and the remains of the pumper’s fuel tanks burst into flames.

“Almost every time Amtrak is involved in an accident—somebody pulls in front of a train or runs into its side— we try to seek reimbursement from their insurance company. If the train is damaged, we try to recover at least a portion of the damages. Most of the time we are successful,” explains Sue Martin, senior director of public affairs for Amtrak. “So we contacted the fire department’s insurance company. They said basically ‘You’ll have to sue us.’ They won’t pay on our claim unless we take them to court. Thus we filed suit. Unfortunately, that’s the way they insisted on doing business.”

Martin says that there was a great misunderstanding when Amtrak named the estate of one of the deceased firefighters in the suit. “We were not going after the personal estate of the firefighter, but the way the department’s policy is written, we felt that in order to

win in court we had to name the firefighter in the claim.”

The fire department and its employees have 5500,000 of liability coverage from the insurance company. Amtrak originally estimated damages to equipment to be 5910,000. However, insurance inspectors now have estimated damages to exceed $1.5 million.

Since the department does not have enough coverage, Amtrak cannot sue for medical expenses of injured passengers. According to Martin, no medical suits have been filed against Amtrak. “Since mostly minor injuries resulted, people had no need to sue—they submitted their medical claims and we paid them.” She estimates that 60 claims have been paid so far and 130 are still pending.

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the crash. It will then issue a report recommending ways to increase safety to prevent future accidents. Martin speculates: “I think the report will determine that the driver of the fire truck should have stopped at the crossing, looked both ways, and given the train the right of way. As a practical matter, it would have been impossible for the train to stop— you need at least a half a mile to stop a train that size.” (According to the USFA, the train was going approximately 77 miles per hour.)

The suit was filed in federal court on October 17. No hearing date has been set as of this writing.

The system would crack down on the dangerous practices of independent shippers, according to Nesbitt. He says some of them don’t have placards and manifests and they are hard to catch. “If they are stopped by police, they claim the wind blew off their placard,” he says, “but they can’t use that excuse with a computerized system.”

The 1AFF is trying to rally support from the NVFC and the IAFC, as well as communities. The bill already has support from some law enforcement organizations. “Our purpose is not to police haz mats, but to give emergency responders accurate, instant information to respond to emergencies,” Nesbitt says. “It’s hard to believe that in the computer age we are still using paper and placards.”

The IAFC has not come out for or against the bill. “We are in favor of any legislation that helps increase the knowledge and information available to firefighters. We are cautiously optimistic about the computer system. We realize it is a tremendous undertaking in terms of cost and effort, but we are not willing to throw away placards until the system has proven itself,” says John Kversole, chairman of the hazardousmaterials committee for the IAFC, who testified before Congress in November to voice the LAFC’s concerns.

Is it realistic to expect fire departments, especially smaller ones, to have access to computers? “It is more realistic than some would like to admit. However, the question becomes what to do with the computers. The government must show the departments how to use them and how to have them fixed when they break down,” Eversole says. Thus he recommended to Congress that “no less than 80 percent of the funding go to local forces for training and equipment.” Another concern was the proposed foundation that the bill says would handle the disbursement of funds. “It is not clear to us who this foundation is. We want to make sure that emergency responders are justly represented,” Eversole adds.

A major problem is how to enforce the new system. “We currently have a hodgepodge of laws that are not enforced. The chances of getting caught are often relatively small, and if offenders are caught, maybe they will find that the fine is cheaper than compliance. We have to change the new system so that people want to comply,” Eversole says. “We have great law’s now and the level of enforcement is not nearly adequate enough to make the laws work.”

The IAFC has met with the IAFF to discuss possible solutions to these concerns. “We are seriously trying to find common ground,” Eversole adds. Among the IAFC’s suggestions are:

• increasing manpower to enforce the regulation;
• establishing 24-hour emergency numbers to reach all carriers in the event of a spill;
• instituting a numbering system for carriers similar to the one railroads use, in which trucks could be rapidly identified and the owner’s name plugged into the computer to retrieve information on contents; and
• giving local governments the right to enforce the regulation so they don’t have to wait for federal authorities to arrive to issue violations.

The computer system would be costly. With a rate of 500,000 shipments and recorded data entries a day, S2 billion to S3 billion a year would be required to maintain the system, according to Eversole. For this reason, Warren E. Isman, chief of the Fairfax County, Virginia Fire Department and former president of the IAFC, is personally against the bill. “I don’t believe it will save a single life—it is so big, immense, and costly. It will cost billions a year and won’t help the fire service.”

Isman suggests getting back to basics and simply marking the contents on the outside. He says of the 200 haz-mat incidents his department worked this past year, the vehicles involved were not so damaged that you could not read the contents. Further, he says, based on his observations and reading, the number of injuries resulting from not knowing the product involved is so low it does not justify spending billions of dollars a year: “If we took the billions and used that money other ways, we’d see a better return on investment in terms of training.”

Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (RNY), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, says the cost will not be outrageous: “I don’t think it will cost billions of dollars. Whatever the cost, it will be worth it to save even a small number of lives. We don’t want to place an unfair burden on anyone.”

There are currently more than 20 haz-mat bills before Congress. “This is a serious issue and we have to come up with one piece of legislation to deal with it. I hope my colleagues take the best of all the proposals and come up with a composite bill that’s realistic and affordable and gets the job done in an efficient manner,” Boehlert says. “The subject matter is very important. We need to have a better system for dealing with haz mats. I’m not certain we have come up with the best solution, but we will work on refining it.”

DOT extends comment period on anhydrous ammonia

The Department of Transportation reports that there is still time for emergency responders to comment on the reclassification of anhydrous ammonia. The reclassification issue is part of proposed rule HM 181, published two years ago, which outlines sweeping changes in hazardous-materials regulations.

Originally the DOT proposed reclassifying anhydrous ammonia as a “poison gas” to more accurately reflect the product’s hazards—a move that would benefit emergency responders in terms of safety. However, the proposed change met with strong opposition from the agriculture industry, which uses the product in fertilizers. “We received adverse comments from farmers who fear that labeling the product as poison will cause their insurance rates to go up,” says Ann Boylan, transportation regulation specialist at the DOT’S Research and Special Programs Administration. Also the manufacturers are concerned that the skull and crossbones on the label will deter people from using it, according to Boylan.

In reaction to this pressure, the DOT has decided to keep the same “nonflammable gas” classification but with an additional “inhalation hazard” placard on all containers. The containers also would be marked “anhydrous ammonia.”

Boylan notes that out of more than 1,000 comments on the proposed change received by the DOT, only eight of them were from emergency responders. “There hasn’t been a mail campaign on the part of the fire service, but we have been inundated with mail opposing reclassification as a poison gas,” she adds.

The original deadline for comments was October 24, 1989. That has been extended to January 30, 1990. The DOT is working toward a target date of the end of next year for issuing the final rule. Boylan says the DOT has not decided whether it will issue a separate rule for anhydrous ammonia or include that rule with the rest of the hazardousmaterials regulations.

Trelleborg issues product warning

The Protective Product Division of Trelleborg, a Solon, Ohio-based manufacturer of chemical and gas protective suits, has issued a product warning for its Akvarex flash suit.

When the Akvarex flash suit is worn over the Trellchem totally encapsulated protective suit, wearers are required to keep the strap fully open. The strap is located directly behind the wearer’s head on the outside of the flash suit, and maintaining an opening will assure that proper exhalation occurs from the suit’s exhalation valve port.

This warning does not apply when the Akvarex flash suit is used in conjunction with the Trellchem nonencapsulated protective suit.

1988 U.S. arson trends

Arson and suspected arson constitute the largest single cause of property damage due to fire in the United States, according to recent statistics from the National Fire Protection Association. In 1988 such fires accounted for $1.594 billion lost to fire in structures and $151 million lost to fires in vehicles. The fires resulted in 740 civilian deaths, 10 more than in 1987.

• The following are highlights of the NFPA’s report on arson trends and patterns:
• There were 99,500 incendiary and suspicious fires in structures reported to fire departments in 1988, a five percent decrease from 1987 figures and the lowest number since the NFPA began tracking the figures in 1977.
• The average loss per fire in structures between 1985 and 1988 was just over $8,000.
• Outdoor fires—such as brush, grass, forest, and outdoor trash fires—constitute the majority of arson or suspected arson fires.
• Eighteen percent of arson offenses were solved by law enforcement agencies in 1988, according to the FBI. This is comparable to other property crime solving rates such as burglary and car theft but lower than rates for violent crimes such as murder and assault. Of those 18 percent solved, 39 percent involved minors.
• Juveniles accounted for 43 percent of those arrested for arson offenses in 1988; 63 percent of those arrested were under age 25, according to the FBI. Arson arrests increased four percent from 1987. The average age for an arson arrestee is 24.
• A number of surveys indicate motives for arson range from vandalism and malicious mischief to revenge or
• spite, pyromania or other mental illness, profit or personal gain, and the concealment of other crimes.
• According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the average sentence served by a convicted arsonist is 25 months. Half of those sentenced serve 21 months or less. However, sentences imposed seem to be getting longer in recent years.
• The largest number of arson and suspected arson fires and losses occur in residential properties, mainly because of the large number of such properties in the country. From 1983 to 1987, 52.2 percent of such fires were in residential properties, 13.1 percent were in special structures such as vacant buildings and those under construction, and 12.5 percent were in storage facilities such as garages and barns.

House passes sprinkler bill

On November 17, 1989 the House of Representatives passed H.R. 94, the Hotel and Motel Fire Safety Act, without opposition. The bill would steer federal travel dollars to sprinklered hotels, encouraging more hotels to install fire safety equipment.

The bill’s fate is now up to the Senate. According to Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), the fire service could influence proceedings: “Unlike the House, there is no core group of senators who have an abiding interest in fire issues. The House has always had to take the lead in fire safety, and H.R. 94 is no exception. Absent a major hotel fire, H.R. 94’s place on the Senate agenda will depend largely on how much interest is shown by nongovernment groups.” He adds that fire groups are especially important because they have no vested interest in the legislation.

At this time no known opposition to the bill exists in the Senate, according to Boehlert. The final House version was a compromise that satisfied a wide variety of groups opposed to earlier drafts. Those who wish to urge the bill’s passage should contact the following senators: Ernest Hollings (D SC), Richard Bryan (D-NV), John Danforth (R-MO), and Slade Gorton (R-WA).