Who Are They Kidding!

Who Are They Kidding!

DEPARTMENTS

EDITOR’S OPINION

In recent months, debate has increased concerning hazardous material response team protection. Committees have formed and recommendations are forthcoming. The fire and safety journals have printed comments from many areas of our country. We are trying to be responsible to the safety of our emergency response personnel operating in hazardous environments.

But, in reality, will we be able to accomplish our goals? The emergency services think that they are charged with, in this case, the protection of life, property, and environment from assault because of a hazardous material container failure. And that is true.

We are committing our trained bodies, protected by the safety products of expert manufacturers, to identify, control, mitigate, and reverse someone else’s accident or mistake.

Fine!

We believed we were, at least, able to depend on administrative and legislative experts who would assist us from the background. We think we have the force on our side—the force to regulate shipment and packaging regulations, to provide us with more sophisticated knowledge at the incident scene. In short, to give us a small upper hand in attaining the objectives we hold as our duty at a hazardous material incident.

Wake up!

We were all horrified by the disaster in Bhopal, India. We were equally distraught to find that the same killer, methyl isocyanate (MIC), is manufactured and stored in West Virginia. It was further reported in THE NEW YORK TIMES that minor leaks into the atmosphere were routine. Maybe we are starting to get an indication that we didn’t have powder in all our bullets in this war on hazardous material incidents.

A more recent report in the WASHINGTON SCENE, a bulletin issued as a service of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, shows that even worse may be the case.

Although he “wouldn’t want to breathe it,” MIC is not on the list of 36 chemicals for possible regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stated Joseph A. Gannon, EPA’s assistant administrator for air, noise, and radiation control. His statements were (thank God) called an “outrage” and “an absolute disgrace” by Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House subcommittee on health and the environment.

To further underline the outrageous comment, Gannon explained the chemical’s omission from the list because of jurisdictional confusion with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on just who is responsible for this chemical’s regulation.

Perhaps this asinine mentality helps explain why the United States was the only country to oppose a resolution by the United Nations to compile an international list of materials that have been banned from at least one country.

We are trying to build our arsenal for controlling hazardous material incidents, but, in this case, it seems our “experts” are marching us into the war with not only faulty bullets, but with our guns aiming at ourselves!

Rick Lasky, Scott Thompson, Curtis Birt, and John Salka

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