Dangerous materials

Special to The Detroit News The Fire Department’s hazardous materials team could do little to battle this tanker fire on Interstate 75 in May. Most of its equipment was locked in a City Airport trailer because the department doesn’t meet federal safety regulations.

Detroit lacks capability to fight hazardous spills

Decade-long effort remains unfinished

By Melvin Claxton and Charles Hurt / The Detroit News

hen a tanker truck overturned and exploded near downtown May 27, the Detroit Fire Department’s hazardous materials team was called. The truck’s driver — who later died — was trapped and hundreds of gallons of fuel had already spilled on the freeway. The flaming fuel escaped down storm drains, setting off explosions that blasted manhole covers into the air.
    The tanker overturned several hundred yards from Comerica Park. The Tigers were playing the Toronto Blue Jays that afternoon and there was concern that the escaping smoke and fumes could affect spectators who were gathering at the stadium.
    There was the added concern that the mixture of gas in the air could be so concentrated that it would cause further explosions. Detroit’s hazardous materials — or hazmat — team was one of 27 Detroit fire companies sent to the scene.
    But the select group of hazmat firefighters was little more than a showpiece.
    Despite accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants over the past decade, and launching several attempts to get serious about dealing with dangerous spills, the Fire Department still doesn’t have a fully functioning hazmat team.
    At the time of the tanker accident, members of the unit hadn’t practiced as a team in two years, and most of their equipment was locked in a trailer at City Airport.
    In addition, the team wasn’t allowed to help stop the spread of fuel from the tanker or clean it up. And team members were unable to check the air for dangerous contaminants from the fuel and smoke, one of the most important tasks of a hazmat unit.
    They had the monitors they needed, but they had no way of knowing if the readings from the monitors were accurate.
    When fire officials bought 12 $3,000 air monitors a year ago, they neglected to buy the $260 test kits required to ensure they work accurately. The test kits still haven’t been bought.
    The maker of the air monitor, Mine Safety Appliances of Pittsburgh, states that the units must be tested daily before use to “verify the instrument is operating and readings are accurate.” When dealing with poisonous or explosive gases, wrong readings could “result in serious personal injury or death,” the manufacturer warns.
    During a demonstration for The News of one of the unchecked monitors by a hazmat member, the machine erroneously showed an oxygen level in the station house of less than 1 percent — well below the 21 percent normally in the air and not nearly enough to sustain human life for even seconds.
    Hazmat team members noted that had dangerous gases been present, they would have had no way of reliably measuring them. They say the glaring misreading underscores the need for the testing kits.
    Hazmat members are not even allowed to don their fully sealed suits designed for handling chemical and biological spills. To do so would violate federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules.

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News Detroit’s hazmat unit is little more than a showpiece. Sixteen years after fire officials promised to make it fully operational, its crew still can’t use most of their gear.

    That’s because after more than 11 years of trying to put a hazmat team in place, Fire Department officials still haven’t added the medical staff to the team that is required by OSHA. Medical personnel are needed to check the pulse rates and the blood pressure of every hazmat member before he suits up.
    Fire Department general manager Niles Sexton says the department is addressing this problem.
    “Medical surveillance is a vital component,” he said. “We are in the process of training several emergency personnel to be integrated into the team.”
    Without a fully functioning hazmat unit, the Fire Department pays local companies every year to contain and clean up hazardous spills. The city calls Fairway Construction, Marine Pollution Control or Inland Waters whenever emergencies arise.
    The city is still forced to use these companies despite receiving more than $850,000 in federal grants to put the hazmat team in place. The money is part of a federal anti-terrorism program aimed at preparing major cities to combat biological and chemical weapons of terror.
    That money has paid for suits, special tools and equipment that fire officials have kept locked away. Hazmat members complain they haven’t been allowed to practice with the equipment they are trained to use.
    The team must contend with other obstacles, too.
    The radios team members use when in the field are ill-suited for the job. Unlike their counterparts in other cities, the Detroit Fire Department’s hazardous materials team lacks voice-activated radios built into their suits.
    Instead, team members carry hand-held radios that must be placed in pockets under their protective gear. To use the radios, a firefighter must wiggle an arm and hand free inside the suit then use that hand to manipulate the radio controls.
    Two years ago, when the full hazmat team held its most recent training exercise, learning to use the radio while suited up was one of the areas covered.
    The unit has another communication problem.
    Fire officials have no way of contacting members of the unit who are off duty during an emergency because beepers or cell phones have never been budgeted for team members.
    What’s more, the unit is among the first to be shut down on days the department doesn’t have enough firefighters to staff all its trucks. From July to September the unit was closed 11 days because of low staffing, records show.
    It’s a far cry from the promises Detroit fire officials made in 1989 when they bought the city’s first hazardous materials truck and vowed to establish a fully operational team that year.
    Little happened until the early 1990s when fire officials made several attempts to jump start the lagging program. But a shortage of firefighters trained to deal with hazardous materials caused the revived efforts to fizzle.
    When the department’s most recent self-imposed deadline for putting the unit in service came in January, the hazmat truck was so old it had to be repainted. At the time, the truck had fewer than 7,000 miles on its odometer.

Contact the reporters at churt@detnews.com and mclaxton@detnews.com.