Fire Service Often Ignored At Hazardous Spill Meeting
departments
In discussions of responses to hazadous materials incidents, the role of the fire service in particular and the participation by local government in general was often ignored at the fifth biennial National Conference on Control of Hazardous Materials Spills. The conference was held May 13-15 at Louisville, Ky.
“Everybody here has some affiliation and is pushing the views of that particular affiliation,” noted Chief Robert Johnson of Fairborn, Ohio, a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs hazardous materials committee. “Local fire chiefs need to recognize that decisions are being made regarding hazardous materials without their input. It is quite obvious to me after attending a few sessions here that fire service first responders are discussed only minimally.
“What has happened in many parts of the country,” continued Johnson, “is that various levels of response personnel have gotten into a battle over who is in charge at a hazardous materials incident. At the time of an incident, it is just too late to work that out. The laws of many states do indicate t hat the fire chief is responsible during a disaster-type situation. But no matter who is in charge, we in the fire service will be responsible for the problem for the first hour or so, and it behooves the chiefs to become involved and knowledgeable in the area of hazardous materials. The time for planning, training, and familiarization is now, not when there is a major incident.”
Inter-agency cooperation at an incident is very important,” stressed Johnson. “As each representative of various levels of government arrives on the scene, you have to cooperate and work with them. You have to take all the expertise available and work with it, burn it into your mind, and then be prepared to make the final decision yourself. You cannot delegate your responsibility to someone else.”
Incident commander
Chief Warren E. Isman, director of the Montgomery County, Md., Fire and Rescue Services and chairman of the IAFC hazardous materials committee, cited issues related to hazardous materials that fire chiefs around the country should be aware of.
“Who’s in charge at a hazardous materials incident scene is a prime issue,” stressed Isman. “The keystone of a successful operation is that there is only one individual in charge. This individual should be a representative of the local government jurisdiction in which the incident occurs. Personnel from whom the incident commander can be selected include the fire chief, senior law enforcement official, civil defense director or senior elected official. It all boils down to finding out in advance who will be in charge and that person assuming the decision-making responsibility.”
In addition, Isman felt that current hazardous materials training may be missing its target.
“While the decisions made by the first-arriving personnel are critical,” the Montgomery County chief noted, “it is impossible for the many millions of public safety officials to be trained to handle all possible incidents with all possible chemicals. Yet that is presently the general thinking in most training programs for public safety personnel. . . Personnel who will not have responsibility for decision-making are learning decision-making. Knowing that they will not need this information, they turn off the entire class. Similarly, senior supervisors are learning the mechanical techniques of stopping leaks instead of the fact that specialized leak-stopping equipment is available. They, too, turn off this type of program.”
Three-level response
Isman proposed a three-level response system. Level I incidents would include the great majority of incidents—those that are small, easily contained, and easily handled that would be responded to by local fire or police emergency teams. Training for Level I personnel would involve recognition, identification, resource availability, basic decision-making, and disaster management. “The key elements,” stresses Isman, “would be to train these individuals to totally handle the minor incidents as well as to supervise more extensive problems.”
Isman explained a Level II incident would involve regional, rather than just local, emergency response teams composed of specially trained fire and police personnel equipped with specialized equipment, such as entry suits, radioactive measuring equipment, leakstopping equipment, flammable vapor detectors and non-sparking tools. Such teams would report to and function under the senior, local public safety official on the scene.
A Level III incident, Isman explained, would require the on-scene utilization of nonemergency response personnel from transportation companies, manufacturers, or local, state and federal government agencies.
“Training for this level individual would be the responsibility of the individual employer,” he stated. “They would become specialists in their given field and so provide advice to local officials. Responsibility for supervision of the incident would still rest with the senior, local emergency response individual.”
Regionalization proposed
“A third issue that is attracting a lot of attention,” concluded Isman, “is hazardous materials disaster management. I feel that preplanning related to hazardous materials may have to be done on a regional basis. Currently, each agency is looking at it individually. Few people are looking down the road. We need to talk regionalization and cooperation, but in the fire service regionalization has been a dirty word. Everybody wants his own hazardous materials apparatus, but will that apparatus cross the line into the county or cross the line into another city?”
A Coast Guard representative noted that the only money the federal government has available to respond to incidents involving pollution of waterways is that appropriated under the Clean Water Act. Originally funded at $35 million, the fund is now down to $1.5 million. Conceivably, a major spill involving potential pollution of waterways could mean the government might not have funds to permit a response.
Both the EPA and the Coast Guard would like to see one or another version of a “superfund” legislation now being considered by various legislative committees enacted into law so federal coordinators could respond with the authority and the funds to take appropriate action.
Expanded use urged
Proposed superfund legislation asks for funding to provide federally assisted response for both spills and hazardous waste sites, not just spills related to water pollution. Depending on how Congress acts, superfund legislation might also address personal damage and liability claims, which the Clean Water Act does not. Generally, industry is not pleased with proposed versions of the superfund because components of industry would be assessed a fee to support it.
Conference attendees repeatedly cited multiple layers of government now involved in hazardous materials incident response and control. One fire chief summed up the feelings of a number when he stated, “I envision 60 people at a command post.”
Also at Louisville, there was increased concern and attention at all levels to the problems of hazardous wastes; concern over lack of compliance by shippers and carriers with regulations coupled with concern that regulations now in effect are not being adequately enforced; an awareness of the increasing probability of large-scale evacuations; and attention to the need to stress containment of hazardous materials spills by local responders.
The question of liability was in a class by itself. Everybody asked about liability, but no one seemed to have any answers. As one fire chief stated ruefully, “If you want to ensure a coffee break, bring up liability.”
