EPA reveals homeland security plan
The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled its strategic homeland security blueprint Wednesday, detailing its plans for responding to biological and chemical attacks.
The four-pronged plan aims to merge the agency's homeland security responsibilities with the agency's mission, said EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman.
"It also builds on the lessons learned after both Sept. 11 and the anthrax attacks," Whitman said.
EPA's plans include ramping up its efforts to detect biological and chemical threats to water supplies; responding to five simultaneous biological or chemical attacks; providing information quickly during an attack; and protecting agency employees and facilities.
The agency is hiring 75 new employees to shore up its ability to respond to several emergencies at the same time. A new response team based in Las Vegas will respond to incidents in the western United States, and the agency has created a national decontamination team, a corps of specialized emergency responders who would be dispatched to provide expertise at the site of a biological, chemical or radiological attack.
"The plan recognizes the dynamic nature of our country's effort to keep our homeland secure from attack, so it is adaptable should situations change and responsibilities shift," Whitman said.
Whitman also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland to help develop tools to combat attacks involving contaminants in the water supply.
Last week, lawmakers praised the agency for its response to the terrorist attacks and subsequent anthrax crisis at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. But some senators still questioned the agency's role in protecting chemical plants.
During the hearing, Whitman told senators the agency had awarded nearly $50 million in grants to the nation's largest drinking water facilities to assess their vulnerabilities and improve security.
"We have strengthened our lab capacity, upgrading our facilities in Cincinnati to handle Level 3 contamination such as anthrax," Whitman testified. "We are establishing a Homeland Security research center in our labs in Cincinnati. This center will manage and coordinate all of EPA's homeland security research in such areas as building decontamination, rapid risk assessment, and drinking water protection."