First responders see latest decontamination equipment

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. (May 21, 2010) - The primary site on base for training Soldiers to fight in urban settings hosted a demonstration last week of altogether different operations.

Men in hazardous material suits sprayed and soaked the walls of Leschi Town May 12, demonstrating the newest equipment and solutions - the most current technologies available to respond to widespread outdoor contamination from chemical and biological agents, or the remnants of radiological or nuclear attack.

The departments of Defense and Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Seattle Urban Area Security Initiative, sponsored an interagency biological decontamination demonstration for Army and Air Force first responders as well as local governments, police and fire department personnel, to show off the substances and equipment developed during recent years by a number of vendors to assuage the effects of a CBRN attack.

"It's really a chance to get the various stakeholders together and get that hands-on experience with some of the things that we've been talking about for the past three years," said Ryan Madden of the Department of Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

The government agencies have partnered to develop policies, approaches, methods, plans and applied technologies to restore large urban areas. It was their chance to explain the operation of their new systems and the thinking behind the technology.

"They're developing a national restoration plan, for the scenario being a wide-area attack, mainly aerosol anthrax, but any biological stuff," said Mark Williamson, the JBLM emergency manager. "We've been working with the planning piece, workshops (and) done seminars on anthrax (leading to the demonstration).

Williamson heads a new JBLM Emergency Management Office under the Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security. He has closely coordinated the demonstration with Madden. Last week's JBLM program kicked off the final stage of an interagency planning process that culminates in September in a capstone exhibition at the Seattle Convention Center.

Madden said there will be two more demonstration events this summer, one at the Washington State Police training facility that will focus on sampling and sample processing. The other primary parts of the program are decontamination and information management.

"This spring and summertime, these larger demonstrations show the culmination of the science and technology that we funded earlier in the program," Madden said. "We (also) have a decision-support system and an emergency-center communication demonstration."

Tabletop exercises are scheduled later this summer to focus on defense support of civil authorities. One of the deliverables from the program is a regional consequence-management plan for Pierce County, King County and Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

"They'll be really ahead of some of the urban areas on having tackled this wide-area restoration," Madden said. "Our finale event in Seattle is a three-day showcasing of everything we've done."

Meanwhile, local stakeholders have been participating in working groups to help put together their investment strategies to determine how to fund their programs.

"They've had insight into decontamination technology and the application devices," Madden said. "But this is the first time they've gotten the chance to see them used. Most of the work up to now has been in a laboratory setting."

(Don Kramer is a reporter with Joint Base Lewis-McChord's weekly newspaper, the Northwest Guardian.)