Colorado Haz Mat Team Prepared for Emergency Situations

Haz Mat Team Prepared for Emergency Situations
Telluride Watch - Telluride,CO,USA
Sep 23, 2008

PUEBLO – Ouray County’s hazardous materials response team averages one hazardous-materials emergency per year, according to Norm Rooker, chief of Ouray County Emergency Medical Services. And if they’re lucky, they get called out of the county to back up another team maybe once every two or three years. Nevertheless, when something does go wrong, they have to be ready – and there are all kinds of things that can go wrong.

“Which is why we put so much emphasis on training to stay confident and sharp,” Rooker said. He and two other members of the OCEMS Haz Mat Team, Mike Bazin of Ouray and Dave Drew of Ridgway, recently attended a three-day training at a facility east of Pueblo to bone up on the assessment, containment and handling of chemicals such as gasoline, propane, acids, and anhydrous ammonia, often used locally as fertilizer for hayfields.

The session was part of a biannual training organized by the Western Slope Hazardous Materials Response Consortium and funded by grants obtained by county emergency management coordinators such as Ouray County’s Alan Staehle. The training consisted of classroom time and field work, with exercises probing everything from how to defray static electricity that could cause an explosion, to handling a spill near a residential neighborhood.

“Each [material] has different properties,” Rooker said. “Some pose a minimal threat. Some are explosive, some displace oxygen – they’re heavier than air.” Rooker said that the placards on vehicles carrying hazardous materials are required to help responders tell from a distance what they are dealing with. “We have what we call the rule of thumb: If you can’t cover up the incident with your thumb with your arm held in front of you, then you’re standing too close.”

While Highway 550 is off-limits to through-transport of hazardous materials, it is open to the transport of materials for local consumption, meaning anything bound for Ouray County as well as for Montrose, Delta and Gunnison counties. That can include gasoline, propane, kerosene, and agricultural chemicals. A 2004 study found that 58 percent of all hazardous materials transported into and through the county were petrochemicals.

In addition, the construction of a gasahol refinery in La Plata County has Rooker expecting an increase in transport of the ethanol-gasoline mix, which has its own unique set of hazards.

“For gasoline and other petroleum products, fire departments carry foam,” Rooker said. However, gasahol breaks down that foam, and while another product is available to fight ethanol fires, it’s more expensive, leaving departments scrambling to find the funding for it.

Regulations, however, don’t always keep the public and the environment safe. Rooker said that last year there were convoys of trucks, 12 to 16 per day, traveling through Ouray County carrying wastewater from gas-drilling projects on the West End, which is not covered by haz-mat regulations. “It may be mostly water, but it’s also contaminated with varying amounts of flammables and more importantly, benzene,” Rooker said. He said that a similar truck overturned near Carbondale the previous year that send six people to the hospital. However, since a new holding facility for the wastewater has been built, he doesn’t expect to see more of the trucks.

What regulations also miss are the people who choose to ignore them. Such was the case earlier this year when a flatbed carrying methanol overturned on Red Mountain Pass.

“The pass had been closed for six days,” Rooker said. “The driver was trying to make up for lost time and had an unfortunate accident.”

Rooker also cited the everyday over-the-counter hazardous materials that don’t get placarded. “Look at all the chemicals at the hardware store or the supermarket,” he said, citing paints, drain cleaners and petroleum distillates. “If I were to go to your house right now and look under your sink and in your garage I would easily find two dozen containers of hazardous chemicals. They’re OK by themselves, but if we were to have a flood or a fire we’d have to deal with them. That’s one of the reasons firefighters wear self-contained breathing apparatus.”

Next year’s training, involving response to radioactive incidents, is already being planned to take place at the Department of Homeland Security’s Nuclear and Radioactive Response School at the Nevada Test Site outside Las Vegas. Though Rooker doesn’t expect the increase in uranium mining in the West End to cause increases in transport of the materials in our direction – currently all ores are being shipped west to Utah for processing – nevertheless, OCEMS may have to go out on a call anyway. With the closest two-man technician teams based in Cortez and Grand Junction, each with a four-hour response time, it’s up to local operations crews, who work together when a job is too big for one county’s team, to hold the fort until they arrive.

“Because we’re so remote we run an operations team on steroids,” Rooker said. “We rescue victims, size up the operations on what we’re dealing with, do defensive operations like dike and dam to stop leaks, prevent it from getting into the water system, keep it out of the environment, and then we decontaminate the rescuers and victims.”

For more information on the Pueblo haz mat training facility go to www.hazmattraining.com. For more information on the Nevada Test Site radioactive response training program go to www.nv.doe.gov/library/factsheets/DOENV_1115.pdf.