West Chester Twp. trustees asked Fire Chief Rick Prinz this week what the impact would be if it happened here, “we are prepared,” he said.
“It’s important to realize the three rail systems we have here in West Chester, that could easily happen here, that same chemical vinyl chloride comes through our rail system all the time, along with a vast array of other hazardous materials,” Prinz said, but added the township is home to one of the county’s Type 1 Hazmat vehicles. “It’s a type 1 meaning it has the capability, the resources, the technology and most importantly the trained personnel, that truck can go anywhere in the state because it’s a Type 1 resource, we’re very, very proud of that asset that we have right here.”
He noted “we couldn’t do it alone obviously,” and it would take a whole team to battle such a disaster, just like what occurred in East Palestine.
Although incidents of this magnitude are pretty rare, Middletown Fire Chief Tom Snively said they train like they can happen at any moment.
“We feel like we are prepared well,” Snively said.
“You can imagine it takes a lot of people to orchestrate something like that and having those management teams to manage all the regional teams, because you’ve got people coming from all over,” Snively said. “Those are incidents that are few and far between, so you have to practice, so all those teams can work together efficiently and speak the same language. Everybody kind of checks their egos at the door and it’s all about tackling a problem together.”
The Incident Management Team from the Butler County Emergency Management Agency responded last week, sending a team of 10 first responders — after receiving an urgent call through the Fire Chief’s Association Response Plan — to organize resources that were flooding in from all over.
EMA Director Matt Haverkos said there are a number of fire departments and officials throughout the county that have the certification so they classify as a “top tier” hazardous materials team.
“We have a Type 1 hazardous materials team so there’s only a few of those throughout the state of Ohio,” Haverkos told the Journal-News. “That basically is a federal metric of having the equipment and the expertise to respond to these large scale disasters, ours is made up of primarily West Chester, Hamilton and Middletown’s fire representatives and it expands a little bit wider than that, over the years we’ve added on other departments that have personnel and resources that can build out that team.”
West Chester Assistant Fire Chief Randy Hanifen was one of the team — he was selected to be the deputy operations section chief — that responded to the East Palestine derailment. While people as far away as Butler County have worried about exposure to airborne toxins and water contamination, he is unconcerned about his first-hand experience.
“To say there wasn’t measures in place, monitoring equipment, all that was done and they were right there with you not picking up any toxins in the air,” Hanifen said. “Granted we weren’t there when they lit that off, but we did note that the EPA was doing all the air monitoring around it and in adjacent areas. Every precaution was being taken that could have been taken.”
The Butler County EMA and local rescuers such as Hanifen deploy to many national disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes, which helps with preparedness should something happened here.
When asked about the scene in East Palestine, he said he has seen entire towns leveled, so he is a little desensitized.
“It’s invaluable that we get to travel to go see these things, manage them and then when they happen here, well 10 years of traveling around with FEMA teams it becomes the norm to you,” Hanifen said. “I think that does a lot for our responders here in the area, that you can get them all that exposure so when it happens here, it isn’t truly a disaster they’ve never seen, it’s just something they’re used to handling.”
Butler County Water & Sewer Director Martha Shelby said the county gets its water from both Greater Cincinnati Water Works and the city of Hamilton. She said “both entities have ground water sources which are not impacted by the East Palestine train incident,” but GCWW also draws water from the Ohio River.
The contamination is expected to reach the portion of the Ohio River from which Cincinnati draws its drinking water late Saturday night or early Sunday, GCWW said. Officials said they were closing the intake valves “out of an abundance of caution.”
“GCWW has the ability to implement several levels of protection to water quality and we are very satisfied with the precautionary measures they have put in place to ensure there will be no impact,” Shelby said. “GCWW has been proactive throughout this situation to ensure delivery of safe drinking water.”
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