Radiological Technology Demonstration
US EPA and the Department of Homeland Security partnered in conducting the Wide Area Urban Radiological Containment, Mitigation, and Clean up Technology Demonstration. The demonstration was held in Columbus, Ohio, June 22‐25, 2016. This highly successful event provided responders options for response to a wide area radiological incident, such as a dirty bomb explosion or a nuclear accident, by showing the responders the operation feasibility of several technologies in real time. During the demonstration end users, those who would respond to real world emergencies, deployed the technologies. The use of the end users in the demonstration provided valuable training to these responders in addition to demonstrating the effectiveness of the technologies. While no live rad agents were employed in this demonstration, critical operational insight was gained by the response community. This event furthers the applied radiological cleanup research conducted by EPA at bench and pilot scales over the last several years by testing that work at a large scale. In attendance were senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security, Ohio EPA, Columbus, OH City Council, Battelle Memorial Institute, first responders from the U.S. and Canada, EPA responders, technology vendors, representatives from FEMA, New York City, the Navajo Nation, the United Kingdom, and many others.
Michael Tobin, emergency management planner from Charlotte, NC had this to say about the demonstration, “It’s a great advantage to us to have the federal authorities look at these products, be able to test them, with input obviously from the local response organizations that are going to respond, to see what is the best product on the market.”
Watch the Toolbox of Technology video to learn more.