Arsenal plan a future boon

Equipment stays in state after emergency program closes

Communication specialist Chris Braithwaite sits at his console at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, which will get to keep communications equipment purchased by the federal Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program when it shuts down in Arkansas by the end of 2010.
Communication specialist Chris Braithwaite sits at his console at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, which will get to keep communications equipment purchased by the federal Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program when it shuts down in Arkansas by the end of 2010.

— Arkansas and 10 counties near the Pine Bluff Arsenal will get to keep more than $93 million worth of equipment, vehicles and other property purchased by the federal government to safeguard the region in case of an arsenal disaster.

The Pine Bluff Arsenal began incinerating its stockpile of chemical weapons in March 2005 as part of a 1997 international treaty to rid the world of chemical weapons. The arsenal is now destroying its last batch of chemical agents - ton containers of mustard blistering agents.

Those agents are expected to be destroyed by the end of2010, meaning the threat of chemical exposure to residents in the 10-county region will be gone and the federal Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program will shut down in Arkansas.

The program was established to enhance emergency preparedness in the counties near the arsenal in case of a disaster. While the 10 counties are essentially in harm’s way in case of a chemical spill or explosion at the arsenal, they also benefit from being in the danger zone.

All the safety equipment and infrastructure the emergency program purchased to use in case of a chemical disaster at the arsenal will remain where it is.

“Everything that has been placed in the state of Arkansas, the agreement with the Army and FEMA was it would become the property of the counties and the state,” program manager Sandi Hensley said.

Hensley said she is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to transfer ownership of the equipment to the state and counties.

She said the stockpile emergency program would take the equipment back only if emergency officials in the 10 counties - Arkansas, Cleveland, Dallas, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Lonoke, Prairie, Pulaski and Saline - are not trained on how to use it.

Since 1997, the state and 10 counties have received more than $93 million, Hensley said.

The program used federal funds, for example, to buy operations centers in Lonoke and Jefferson counties worth more than $2.5 million combined, Hensley said.

The operations centers in Jefferson and Lonoke counties will be used long after the last of the chemical agents stored at the Pine Bluff Arsenal are destroyed.

The operations center in Jefferson County - built with about $2 million in emergency program funds in 1991 - is underground, beneath the Jefferson County Courthouse in Pine Bluff. It includes the county’s 911 dispatch center and emergency management center.

“At the time it was built it was state of the art - the best one in the state,” said Karen Quarles, acting director of the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management and a former procurement officer for the arsenal’s emergency program.

“We would not have had this if it wasn’t for CSEPP because we couldn’t have afforded it. We have definitely benefited from it.”

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

CSEPP expenditures 2005-09

From 2005 to 2009, the program spent $14.5 million in federal funds on equipment and infrastructure in the 10 counties.

In Pulaski County, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Baptist Medical Center, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and St. Vincent’s Hospital received a total of $810,069 worth of communications equipment and infrastructure from the emergency program since 2005.

The money allows Children’s Hospital, for example, to communicate via radio - without a phone line or computer - with every hospital in the state, the arsenal, public safety officials, and county, state and federal officials. Before the funding, the hospital was unable to communicate at that level, said Doug Brown, emergency management coordinator at Children’s Hospital.

Brown said he used the technology last year to help get generators for the hospital’s specialized-care patients in Northwest Arkansas during ice storms.

“It’s been a fantastic way to spend money,” Brown said. “I can take a dollar bill and stretch that sucker from here to South Carolina ... and I was able to do that with that communications money.”

“What’s good about this, is not only did CSEPP pay for it, but it doesn’t go away when CSEPP goes away,” Brown added.

Saline County has received $764,025 since 2005 for a storage building, furniture, a fax machine, a copier, radios, software and communications equipment.

In Grant County, the stockpile emergency program spent $2.7 million since 2005 on items such as a heater and cooler, pagers, a storage building and other communications equipment such as radios for firefighters and police.

“It’s obviously been a godsend for Grant County,” Grant County Sheriff Robert Shepherd said.

“The sheriff ’s office, as well as the Sheridan Police Department and all of the volunteer fire departments have all been very fortunate to have received some CSEPP funding for communications equipment. It’s kept us in the ballgame.”

It’s not just counties and hospitals that have received funding.

Arkansas’ Wireless Information Network - which provides a means of communication for all public safety agencies - was paid for through the program’s funds, Quarles said.

Moreover, since 2005 the Arkansas Department of Health has received $365,324 worth of decontamination equipment, medical equipment and other supplies. The Arkansas Department of Human Services received $19,215 for radios, the Arkansas Department of Information Systems received $2.4 million for communications towers and wireless network channels, and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department received $108,000 for messaging boards.

The Highway Department controls the boards, which sometimes warn drivers to buckle up and not drink and drive.

Randy Ort, a spokesman for the highway department, said the priorities for the message boards are in case of an emergency at the arsenal, followed by high-level Morgan Nick AMBER alerts, highway accidents and safety messages.

The message boards, Ort said, will be used long after the stockpile emergency program shuts down.

“These were precautionary measures CSEPP took, but I think it’s great foresight to not just get something of a temporary nature, but something that we can get some life out of after CSEPP is gone,” Ort said. “I think these changeable message boards are a great example of that.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/04/2010

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