Should Haz-Mat teams be Dept run or County run?

[firemoose827 324]

I have an interesting question to pose to everyone, and hopefully get some thoughtful discussion and input from everyone as well. I belong to a County Haz-Mat team. I have not been able to be too active in the last few years due to my daughter being born and family issues. When I was last active we had about 20 members, about half of those being trained to the Technician level and acting as entry people.

I just recently returned to active duty and attended three drills in the past month, only to find we now only have about 10 members, only TWO of which are Technician level. Those 2 guys are above the age of 50 and desperately want to "Retire". After asking around I found a lot of people in the county have their Technician training, but refuse to join the team because of the leadership, they dont like the County Coordinator thats in charge of the team. A few people have even tried to create a Department team but were shot down because of the fact we have a County team.

Would it be better for us to continue to run the team as a county team, or should we break it down to Department teams that we would call to any spill in our county? Efforts are being launched right now to increase the knowledge of the team and what we do to the squads and departments in our county in an effort to get more members. Last night we attended a drill at one of our independent Ambulance Squads in the county, and we spoke to them about the team, what we do, what they would do if we called them to a Haz-Mat scene, than gave a demo on wearing the class "A" Suits and allowed them to help us get into them so they became familiar. It ended up going well and they were really impressed with the operation and were more eager to help us in the future now that they were aware of what their responsibilities were as an EMS agency who would be assisting the team. We even took a "Group Picture" with myself and another member in Class "A" suits, our Coordinator, and the Rescue Squad Members. I will try and get a copy of it and post it in Bravo somewhere.

So, what does everyone think about County Teams? Department Teams? Which do you feel is better and would be more efficient to the county?

[Guest alsfirefighter]

You've asked a very good question Moose that is very difficult to answer in any one manner and also could be sensitive.

On one hand you have an issue where you have an established team however members are not coming in due to some apparant issues with the head of the team. If this is the case why hasn't other department heads stepped up and found out why or the powers to be at the county level. Is it he has leadership issues? Or management issues? Remember leadership and management are 2 different beasts. Either one can be worked on, but leadership sometimes takes time and everyone has the ability to be a leader.

As far as doing it on a department level, this can be tedious, expensive and also cause difficulties in ensuring proper response. Duplication of services or reduction in services could result and theoretically you should be able to pool more personnel for response capability on a county level then you should be able to on a local level. Then of course there is the question that will arise about reimbursement for response when equipment/materials are used adn lets say reimbursement through the causing company/agency isn't possible or in full. I'm all for helping out next door but I don't want my department to spend my tax dollars replacing equipment that has a greater chance of being used everywhere else but my town.

Sounds like some gloves off discussion need to be held. Feelings/opinions need to be checked at the door and figure out what exactly is the problem with the current head of the hazmat team. If there are those that don't like him because of personal conflicts...then they need to grow up and get over it. You're there to provide a service, its not about pride or opinion or personal feelings. If there are legitimate management issues then bring them up and the county or even the individual needs to make a decision. But they should be factual management issues and again not personal dislikes. This isn't about pride, or how its been or "control," its about service, proper management, etc!

[ex-commish 490]

I agree with ALS. Doing it at a local level can be costly and time consuming. What is ideal about a county or regional team is you are pooling resources. I feel the decline of involvement is also due to lack of activity. There are not that many hazmat calls so the interest level may drop.

[x635 4,066]

In Westchester County, Department's can't even handle a simple room and contents fire without mutual aid. I don't feel like having department teams would be beneficial, at least in Westchester (except for cities like Yonkers and New Rochelle) unless that jurisdiction had specific hazmat liabilities.

However, I feel each department should be trained and equipped to handle haz-mat first response until a real Haz-Mat team can arrive.

[antiquefirelt 994]

Very timely question Moose. Yesterday I attended an LEPC meeting so that our FD could propose the Couny LEPC take over as the lead of our FD run Haz-Mat/WMD Team. My dept. has operated a haz-mat team for over 20 years but in the last 6 years became one of 8 State funded Regional Response Teams.

The issues we've faced as a FD team are mostly derived from maintaining adequate numbers of trained personnel. We found it necessary to utilize outside personnel to augment our personnel who are Techs. Frequently we've responded to outside agencies to find they could not provide enough Ops personnel to staff a decon line. As a combination FD trying to run a Haz-mat team that provides both Technicians and Operations level Decon personnel became a huge undertaking while trying to provide fire and EMS services at a high quality level. We decided we needed to lose the Ops level decon portion by farming it out to other FD's. Long story short, the State funding hinges on the Team being one complete team, so a County Team that could them be separated into divisions seems to be the best bet for us.

Different demographics of FD's, County government and Sate laws may have a large effect on how this can work in other areas.

[IzzyEng4 427]

Where I work, my department is part of the CERRIT unit. The name means Connecticut Eastern Regional Response Integrated Team. Each member department has a specific duty and vehicles, my department you need to be HazMat Tech 472 level trained. We have one of the CT prime movers with a decon trailer and also a Hazmat / rescue unit that was purchased with the CT Department of Homeland security funds. Each department, career and volunteer, have a staffing availability agreement on a response. Here is the link for all those who want more detailed information.

http://www.nlcfca.org/cerrit.htm

Since a great number of personnel is needed for an active incident, I beleive that a county or regional based system is more beneficial.

[61MACKBR1 222]

All Cities, Towns, and Villages throughout Westchester County (Including New Rochelle and Yonkers) should be HAZ-MAT Supported by a County Run Haz-Mat Operations (WCDEM), strategically set up, equipment and manpower, throughout the county, within specific ZONE or QUADRANT areas. Sounds more and more like a County Run DES operation, throughout the entire county, is making allot of sense.

[helicopper 1,050]

Considering the simple logistics and training requirements (to avoid the politics and egos to the extent possible), the benefit of a County team (or regional teams in larger areas) is that only one cache of equipment is needed for each team and you only have to train one group of team members. Conversely, the department level teams requires 59 different caches of equipment and the training of an exponentially larger number of people. From what I've been told, this was the impetus for County teams back in the 80's. It would have been too labor intensive (regardless of paid/volunteer) to train personnel in every department and too expensive to equip every department.

This is not to say that some departments couldn't establish their own teams (such as Yonkers for example) but not every department requires one.

The other issue is that of call volume. Are there enough calls in a single district to allow their members to maintain proficiency in all the skills required of a haz-mat tech? Probably not! A county team gets to cover more calls with fewer people so there are more opportunities for experience.

That's looking at Westchester as an example. Using an upstate County like in Moose's example, there are problems with staffing even with a County team.

And a question of my own... Operationally, how does having so few qualified members affect a team? Don't you need two in and two out for a haz-mat job?

[firemoose827 324]

That's looking at Westchester as an example. Using an upstate County like in Moose's example, there are problems with staffing even with a County team.

Id like to touch on this topic. I noticed that a lot of the time people refer to Westchester County when a question arrises and Im glad you pointed out the difference Chris! Thanks.

Yes, thinking outside the box, there are different situations in different counties. In our county we have 17 fire departments, ours in Cobleskill is one of the three busiest in the County averaging 300-400 calls a year. We do quite a few haz-mat jobs but they are few and scattered. Mostly Meth Lab take downs where we back up State Police but now we call the County Team for that.

We had a Structure fire a few years ago in our neighbors district, and they were making a great stop when we got on scene to assist, and as we were receiving orders from the initial attack crews as they handed the line over they started to feel sick and weak. They went to EMS and we ended up finding a METH LAB set up in the living room, which happened to be next to the room of origin and they crawled right next to it and knocked it over spilling the chemicals.

And a question of my own... Operationally, how does having so few qualified members affect a team? Don't you need two in and two out for a haz-mat job?

Yes you are right, there is the need for a back up crew for every entry into the hot zone. We call the next county over, they have a team from the Albany Airport respond to back us up for now. But this summer we have 4 going to the academy in Montaur Falls to take Technician. So we are crossing our fingers!

[jcoppola 52]

I support the county system for specialized types of services. Izzy makes a good analogy with the CERRIT team, as I am a member of Fairfield County Hazmat and we operate similarly. A county response has it's pros and cons.

PROS: A culmination of resources and personnel. All departments put in a little for the greater good. A good network and working relationship between members who are from different departments. Utilizing specific experts as advisors such as EMS, DEP, PD, Military and site-specific folks etc. (FCHM enjoys this benefit) Storage of trucks and equipment around the county and having different departments accountable for minor maintenance and tracking.

CONS: Response times suffer and there is usually a staggered response depending on where in the county the call out is. FCHM enjoys decent response times because Fairfield County is fairly small, but I heard that NHASH and Capitol Region are spread out all over the place and they depend on a lot of volunteer services which can have issues with responses during working hours.

JVC