EH&S hazmat team has protocols for a variety of responses

By Lissa Harris

It was Oct. 31 and Cornell students were waiting inside Warren Hall for the yellow caution tape cordoning off the entrance to the rural sociology department to come down. For the students, it was an unusual situation: a hazardous materials ("hazmat") team was investigating a suspicious letter.

But other people in the potential "hot zone" in Warren Hall were well-prepared as they methodically went to work in Tyvek suits, respirators and gloves. This group was from Cornell's Department of Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S), the university's first defense in hazmat emergency response.

Between calls Nov. 8, at the Environmental Health and Safety office on Palm Road, are, from left, emergency services specialists Chris Jordan and Joe DeMarco; Frank Cantone, biological safety officer; and Andy Garcia-Rivera, EH&S director. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

It was quickly determined that the suspicious letter that had been opened in Warren Hall almost certainly did not contain anthrax, and the department was reopened by 2 p.m. (although three rooms were closed off until conclusive tests were made). But, said Andy Garcia-Rivera, director of EH&S, the response to the suspected contamination was a matter of putting a well-oiled, standard emergency plan into action. "We have protocols for mail-handling procedures, we have protocols for addressing suspected or confirmed threats of anthrax or other suspicious powders or liquids. And we have various procedures that start off with a relatively non-complex response, up to a more complicated response," he said.

Few institutions of any size can boast of a body of professionals with the skills and experience of Cornell's fire safety and hazmat emergency services response team. EH&S is the equivalent of a number of agencies rolled into one, at one moment acting as a surrogate nuclear regulatory commission, at another, as an occupational health and safety administration.

This has never been more true than over the past few weeks, during which Cornell police and EH&S have responded to 63 incidents on campus involving suspicious mail or substances (see story). But EH&S and its colleagues in Cornell Police and Gannett: University Health Services were well schooled in the fine print of their emergency planning. "We have been working together daily trying to figure out how we are going to handle this, and the systems we have set up have helped us," said Sharon Dittman, associate director for community relations at Gannett.

The anthrax scare has given the three campus emergency-response groups an opportunity to refine their procedures for mail handling and for responding to possible contamination by biological agents. "We are coming up with a formal protocol that will involve Cornell Police, EH&S and Gannett, together with the FBI and the [New York state] health department," said William Boice, Cornell director of public safety. "I'm pretty excited about that document."

Planning has been developed in a similar way over the years at Cornell, in response to new emergencies or to developing hazards, by groups as various as the Laboratory Safety Office and Fire Protection Emergency Services. EH&S was the result of a 1993 merger of Life-Safety Services and the Office of Environmental Health.

Safety planning goes back to Cornell's earliest years when, in 1875, the first president, Andrew Dickson White, presented the university's first safety statute to trustees. It was titled "Protection Against Fire" and was probably a response to the common student prank of burning down dormitory outhouses.

More than 120 years later, in 1996, President Hunter Rawlings announced the university's first comprehensive health and safety policy. The 65 specialists at EH&S, located at the Humphreys Service Building or at 201 Palm Road, today provide health and safety services in more than 50 areas, from asbestos management to fire protection, and respond to roughly 2,600 calls a year. Some EH&S employees also serve on their local fire departments. Others have advanced certification in a variety of areas, such as industrial hygiene and biological and radiation safety.

Ithaca is unusual for a city of its size in having such a highly trained and widely versed group as EH&S to respond to emergencies. Indeed, said Garcia-Rivera, the breadth of services provided is unusual even for a large research university, a fact recognized in 1997 by the National Safety Council's Campus Safety, Health and Environmental Management Association, which honored the department with its prestigious Award of Merit. (Garcia-Rivera will chair the association next year.)

Teamwork, both within the department and with a variety of campus departments, is the key to EH&S's effectiveness, said Garcia-Rivera, "because we cannot do it alone -- it involves partnerships throughout the community."

When specialists are called to an incident involving potentially biohazardous materials, such as the suspicious letter opened in Warren Hall on Oct. 31, the hazmat team and Cornell Police set up an incident command structure inside the building. If necessary, the police set up a perimeter around the area of possible contamination and take evidence from the site. Medical professionals from Gannett Health Center are called in to consult with people in the affected area. EH&S professionals assess whether anyone at the scene is at risk of exposure to hazardous materials, and if so, what precautionary measures to take.

University security and safety professionals believe Cornell would be an unlikely target for a terrorist attack. However, the events of Sept. 11 and the ensuing anthrax scare have changed the way of life for the campus community, said Boice. He echoes the views of many of his colleagues who feel that heightened awareness of risk may well become a permanent part of daily life. Cornell police already have stepped up security at many campus events, from football games to lectures by potentially controversial visitors.

Frank Cantone, the biological safety officer at EH&S, emphasized that although events since Sept. 11 have made his job a highly visible one. "There are a lot of other day-to-day things we are very involved with that encompass a lot of other aspects of campus safety and don't get the limelight or the press." He noted, "There are a lot of things that we do in the background to ensure that things work well here."