MLFD gets grant for hazardous response team

MOSES LAKE — it’s a Thursday afternoon in the Safeway parking lot, and a trio of Moses Lake Fire Department firefighters stands around an old white Cadillac.

There’s the smell of gasoline in the air, and the firefighters have scattered coarse diatomaceous earth — basically cat litter — to contain a spill caused by a drip from the car’s gas tank.

“We’re not the hazardous materials team,” one MLFD firefighter says. “We’re still working on that.”

According to MLFD Chief Brett Bastian and Assistant Chief Derek Beach, gasoline and diesel spills are the most frequent kinds of calls Moses Lake firefighters will respond to that involve hazardous chemicals — defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration as any chemical that can cause death, injury, corrode, catch fire or explode.

Bastian added nearly every house fire any fire department responds to involves or creates hazardous chemicals.

“Your standard house fire generates hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide, and there are any number of things that we can run into on just a regular house fire,” he said.

However, according to an EPA database, much of the industry in Moses Lake’s Wheeler Corridor and around the Port of Moses Lake uses or produces as waste some very hazardous materials like ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, nitric acid and heavy metals like cobalt and lead. But even your typical vehicle accident involves the spill of fuel or coolant, and an average semi-tractor trailer can carry several hundred gallons of fuel — all of which poses a risk to first responders and the public, Beach said.

“The number of over-the-road trucks that come through this jurisdiction, or the county for that matter, with hazardous materials is quite alarming each and every day,” Beach said.

“We run probably between nine and 10 responses annually that would actually be categorized as a true hazardous materials event where that is the primary hazard as a spill or release of a chemical,” Bastian said. “We've had a truck full of tetramethylammonium hydroxide rollover on the ramp right out here on I-90. And all of those things can be some pretty substantial hazardous materials events.”

It’s one reason Bastian said the MLPD, working with Chelan County Fire District 1, Chelan County Fire District 7 and Douglas County Fire District 2 to create a multi-district hazardous material response team, and recently received a $248,500 grant to start organizing and training that team.

The grant will pay for training but won’t cover the self-contained breathing gear first responders will need to properly tackle a spill or a fire involving hazardous materials. Bastian said he’s working with the Chelan-Douglas Health District to find the money to pay for that equipment.

Bastian and Beach envision firefighters from Douglas and Chelan counties responding to Moses Lake in the event of a large incident here — and trained MLFD firefighters responding in kind as needed. If it seems a haul for firefighters in East Wenatchee to respond to an incident in Moses Lake, Bastian noted the nearest qualified hazardous response teams are either with the Spokane Fire Department, or the State Department of Ecology’s hazardous materials response team based in the Puget Sound region.

“They’re two, three, four hours away,” Beach said. “Currently, we basically isolate and deny entry to the area and make a call for one of those outside agencies.”

Currently, Bastian said, four MLFD firefighters have some kind of specialized hazardous material response training, but none has the 40 hours required to qualify as technicians. The goal is to have firefighters eventually trained and capable of not merely isolating an “event” — a fire or a spill — involving hazardous materials, but actually proactively moving to stop or end an event.

“Then the technician level actually is where you begin to be able to start taking offensive action. We have a leaking anhydrous valve, the team actually can suit up, go in and repair the valve, stop the leak,” he said.

Bastian said MLFD works closely with local industries as part of their hazardous materials plans to make sure firefighters know what might be waiting for them in the event of an emergency. Companies that use and produce their own hazardous materials have safety plans, are required to notify federal and state regulators in the event of chemical releases or events and are required to have safety officers on staff as well, Bastian said.

“We can't do this on our own, even with a team,” Bastian said. “We have to have industry participation in this, our local emergency planning committee has to be involved, and Emergency Management.”

“It’s a pretty well-layered onion that is hazardous materials response,” Bastian added.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.