Radford AAP participates with government agencies during WMD exercise

RADFORD, Va. -- A worst-case scenario made for the right environment for high-stakes training.

Radford Army Ammunition Plant, along with several government agencies, participated in a weapons of mass destruction/mass casualty drill April 28 inside the plant's borders.

Agencies who participated in the exercise included the FBI, Virginia Department of Health, Virginia Department of Emergency Management, Virginia State Police, local hospitals, local and county law enforcement agencies.

Planning for the exercise began in October 2011 with monthly meetings including a table top exercise in February followed by a walk through exercise in March, according to Kenneth J. Mahoney, chief, Risk Management Team/law enforcement officer at RFAAP.

"This has been an annual exercise since 1995," Mahoney said. "This year we stood up a family assistance center as well as having observers from both ATK and BAE (Systems)."

ATK and BAE Systems are currently in transition as the plant's operating contractor for Radford.

Mahoney also thanked the ROTC students from Virginia Tech University and Radford University for playing the exercise victims.

After the exercise, Radford AAP Fire Chief Jay Altizer provided the after action review inside the plant's firehouse.

"For the scenario we had two disgruntled employees at a change house that started an acid leak," he said.

Representatives from the FBI noted that the element of an intentional nerve agent release brings the incident on the national (crime) level.

"The security aspect of the exercise was much more improved," Altizer said.

Lt. Col. Byron Penland, commander at Radford AAP, thought overall the exercise went well.

"Emergency response exercises like this are critical events designed to make RFAAP better prepared to respond to real world emergencies," Penland said, who supports opportunities for interagency training. "This year's emergency response exercise was made more significant in that we were fortunate to exercise never before used capabilities from the Commonwealth of Virginia in a training event that both improved their procedures and systems and enhanced the training experience for Team Radford."

Radford AAP is a subordinate organization of the Joint Munitions Command responsible for producing nitrocellulose, explosives, and 30 mm medium-caliber rounds.

From its headquarters in Rock Island, Ill., JMC operates a nationwide network of conventional ammunition manufacturing plants and storage depots, and provides on-site ammunition experts to U.S. combat units wherever they are stationed or deployed. JMC's customers are U.S. forces of all military services, other U.S. Government agencies, and allied nations.