Agenda

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C. 9

To:	Board of Supervisors
From:	Anna Roth, Health Services Director
Date:	October 9, 2018

Contra

Costa

County

Subject:

2018 Urban Shield Exercise

APPROVE	OTHER
RECOMMENDATION OF CNTY ADMINISTRATOR	RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE

Action of Board On: 10/09/2018

APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED

OTHER

Clerks Notes:

VOTE OF SUPERVISORS

AYE:

John Gioia, District I Supervisor
Candace Andersen, District II Supervisor
Diane Burgis, District III Supervisor
Karen Mitchoff, District IV Supervisor
Federal D. Glover, District V Supervisor

Contact:	Randy Sawyer, 925-335-3210
cc:	Tasha Scott Marcy Wilhelm Randy Sawyer

I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Supervisors on the date shown.
ATTESTED: October 9, 2018
David Twa,

BY:	, Deputy

RECOMMENDATION(S):

ADOPT Resolution No. 2018/513 recognizing the Hazardous Materials Incident Response Team for winning the Hazardous Material Response section at the 2018 Urban Shield Exercise.

FISCAL IMPACT:

No fiscal impact.

BACKGROUND:

The Health Services Hazardous Materials Response Team participated in the Hazardous Materials Response section of Urban Shield 2018. Hazardous materials response teams were required to demonstrate their abilities in a series of realistic, mentally and physically challenging, state-of-the-art training scenarios to respond to the uncontrolled releases of hazardous substances during transportation or at fixed facilities as well as incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. Six different areas of response were evaluated as follows:

BACKGROUND: (CONT'D)

• Biological Agent Lab – Response to an unknown biological weapon dispersal device directed to an office air conditioning intake to determine with testing it was anthrax containing.
• Chemical – Determine what agent a victim was exposed to on a ferry boat, based on testing, determined to be malathion in a dispersal device.
• Radiological – Preventative Radiological Nuclear Detection (PRND). Response to radiological sources suspected stolen out of medical devices by a “known” extremist group.
• Rail/chemical – Response to a tampered railcar of chlorine releasing toxic levels of chlorine gas into the community. The assignment was to stop the leak and implement protective actions.
• Dirty Bomb – Response to an exploded automobile and the assignment was to determine the radiological isotopes and the extent of contamination.
• Field Identification – Test and identify 13 unknown chemicals and determine they were explosives precursors.

Each team was given two (2) hours to solve each scenario. Each Hazardous Material Response Team was graded on their ability to assess the threat, determine an action plan to mitigate the situation, and exercise that plan. This annual competition challenges and prepares local Hazardous Material response teams for an actual chemical/biological/nuclear incident in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Contra Costa Hazardous Materials Incident Response Team has won this event three times and came in second last year and second and third in 2013. The team participating this year included: Maria Duazo (Urban Shield Team Lead), Trisha Johnson, Daniel Vazquez, Hung Pham, David LeCount, Ellen Dempsey, Adam Springer, Ian Williams, and Karine Abramians.

In addition to the team that competed, two members, Devra Lewis and Xavier Bryant, of the Hazardous Materials Response Team were responsible for handling two of the scenarios. This includes assisting in developing the scenario and evaluating the twelve teams on how well they did for their situation.