MONSANTO’S “MERIT” TEAM: PARTNER WITH THE PUBLIC SECTOR
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
THE 1980s HAVE shown that in order to control industrial plant emergencies and to be responsive to the protection of our environment, a two-way liaison must exist between the plant and its fire protection personnel and the public fire departments. An example of such a mutually productive relationship is the one that exists between the Monsanto Chemical Company and the Springfield, Massachusetts Fire Department and other community agencies.
The Monsanto Chemical Company operates 150 manufacturing and research facilities worldwide and employs 50,000 people. It manufactures a variety of products, including pharmaceuticals, herbicides, chemicals, plastics, fibers, electronic materials, and industrial process controls. Its Indian Orchard plant, located in Springfield, Massachusetts, employs 1,350 people and produces plastics, resins, industrial chemicals, and safety glass interlayer.
While Monsanto always has responded to emergencies on and off its plant sites, the Monsanto Emergency Response Information Team (MERIT) was formally created in 1980 as a network of plant people who know Monsanto’s products and emergency response procedures. MERIT responders are also experienced in manufacturing, distributing, and handling Monsanto products safely.
The goal of the MERIT program is to respond quickly to an incident to prevent or minimize any damage to our neighbors, carriers, or employees. MERIT will respond to transportation or nontransportation emergencies that involve Monsanto raw materials and products. Even if Monsanto materials aren’t involved, MERIT will help emergency officials or other companies on request when it is the nearest available expert.
Monsanto’s MERIT team is similar to many of the industrial response teams that the chemical industry has created to protect the community. Many of these teams fall under Chemical Manufacturing Association’s (CMA) CHEMNET program. CHEMNET is a mutualaid network between chemical shippers that provides advice and assistance at the scene of serious chemical distribution incidents.
(Photos by Philip Silensky.)
Monsanto works in partnership with CHEMTREC (Chemical Transportation Emergency Center), created in 1971 by CMA to coordinate handling of transportation incidents. CMA members such as Monsanto provide product information to CHEMTREC, which notifies Monsanto’s Operations Emergency Response Center any time of the day or night when a MERIT response is appropriate.
“MERIT” IN ACTION
Just before midnight on June 17, 1988, the phone rang at the Indian Orchard plant. As an industrial fire chief, 1 have come to expect late-night calls. This one was from our plant’s emergency communication system, saying that the Springfield Police Department had requested a Monsanto representative at the emergency command post on State Street. The plant’s security guard said that the problem was a “chlorine” fire but that Monsanto materials were not involved. I contacted Monsanto’s environmental superintendent while the initial call was being verified and attempted to get additional information.
We initially decided to send two members of our MERIT team to the command post and send another member to the plant for additional equipment. At the command post we provided technical information, continued CHEMTREC contacts, and acted as liaison with the plant and our corporate offices in St. Louis. Discussions with the emergency coordinator at the command post led to a list of needs that we would satisfy in the city’s integrated response.
Our “on scene” team grew to four at the site and a plant liaison contact.
Team members brought extra respirators to the command post. Discussions with CHEMTREC as well as our corporate headquarters in St. Louis disclosed that we could either have Monsanto chlorine experts flown in from St. Louis or find a producer of chlorine chemicals in the Northeast. The incident commander decided that in the interest of time we should try to contact a regional expert. The plant contact (the safety manager) was able to reach Olin Corporation—a maker of products similar to those involved here—and requested an expert advisor. Even though an Olin product was not involved and its facility was a few hours away, Olin quickly agreed to send a member of the Olin Corporation Emergency Action Network (OCEAN®) team. The OCEAN team is an industrial response group similar to Monsanto’s MERIT team.
Team members assisted in vapor measurement, used to track the vapor cloud and make evacuation decisions. As soon as the fire was out we were asked to enter the building and perform a recon while mapping the basement. Two of us entered in Level A suits and surveyed the area. We gave the information and basement map with the specific chemicals and locations to the district chief.
By 9:00 Saturday morning a member of the OCEAN team was at the incident. The EPA also had sent in a team by this time. These two groups relieved our team, which then left the incident site.
FORMING A PARTNERSHIP
How did an industrial emergency response team interact with the public emergency service? The answer to this goes back a number of years.
In 1984, representatives of the city of Springfield and Monsanto agreed to bolster the city’s response to a hazardousmaterials incidents. During 1983-’84 all possible responding fire and rescue squads from all shifts were invited to Monsanto for a tour of the facility as well as a general recognition of and introduction to hazardous materials.
Following this, two hazardous-materials drills were held by the city—one in an industrial area and the other in our plant’s parking lot. Meetings to coordinate response plans were attended by, in addition to Springfield’s fire and police departments and Monsanto’s fire company, a number of agencies from the area, including civil defense, department of public works, ambulance companies, and neighboring fire departments. Based on these meetings and drills, a preliminary integrated emergency response plan was developed.
The plan was tested on May 5, 1985 in a major city drill held in our plant. It involved a tank truck/rail tanker collision with both tanks leaking as well as mass casualties from a simultaneous school bus accident. Twenty-five agencies participated, including regulatory and EMS. Spectators included the press, members of neighboring local governments, state agencies, and representatives of state government. This plan became the first integrated industry/citv response plan in this area—more than two years before SARA required it.
Following this drill the Springfield City Council requested that a city hazardous-materials response vehicle be funded, and Monsanto volunteered to take a leadership role in the effort. Plant management reviewed and approved this proposal and appointed the current safety superintendent to manage this fund drive, with a goal of SI00,000.
These activities occurred almost simultaneously with the initiation of the CMA’s “Community Awareness & Emergency Response” (CAER) program, which strives to improve local emergency response planning by integrating community and industry emergency planning and information sharing. (See “The Success of CAER” on p. 81 of the August 1989 issue of Fire Engineering.)
Ultimately 50 businesses with ties to the area (as far north as Quebec and as far west as Idaho) contributed SI00,000 for equipment funding. These businesses, with the involved response agencies, later formed the Western Mass Hazardous Materials Advisory Council. The final expenditure decisions were made by the fire chiefs of the four largest departments in this region — Springfield, Ludlow, Chicopee, and Holyoke. This activity was recognized on a national level when the CMA presented its CAER level II award to the advisory council for the level of community awareness, emergency response demonstrated, and interagency plan developed.
To maintain and foster interagency cooperation and response, tabletop exercises were initiated. These exercises have continued each year and cover response agencies and industry.
A TRAINING TEAM
Recently Monsanto and the Springfield Fire Department Training Section invited all the departments in the area to a haz-mat training get-together to share methods, problems, and solutions. We hope to repeat the event on a quarterly basis.
Monsanto’s efforts in the area of training aren’t limited to the immediate area. Over the past few years, training has been extended to 20 to 30 towns in Massachusetts as well as Connecticut. We recently have begun branching out to smaller towns and their volunteer departments. Small towns generally have difficulty responding to a haz-mat incident with a sufficient number of appropriately trained personnel and equipment. One solution under consideration is a region response organization of trained first responders that can effect basic incident mitigation. This will, however, require high levels of training.
Each year Monsanto conducts a fire school with Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. Many of our plants host members of the local departments. This year the Indian Orchard plant will sponsor two members of the Springfield Fire Department’s Training Division. We feel that this is a good way to introduce the latest methods of fire and hazardous materials response into the department quickly.
The plant’s fire department is one of 33 departments that form the Hampden County Fire Mutual Aid Association. Recently the association wanted to purchase training materials that would reduce its operating budget significantly. As these training materials would be shared with many departments in the region, we purchased them for the association.
The public and private sectors are working together more and more. They have to—they are dependent on each other: The city needs industry to employ its citizens and provide a tax base, and industry requires city services and population as a workforce. Both require a safe and healthy environment for the citizens of the area, since industry will only exist where the citizens allow it. Both public and private sectors understand this more clearly today than ever before, and cooperation, rather than antagonism, is and will have to be the way to seal the partnership.