The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing this alert as part of its ongoing effort to provide information on environmental issues related to biological, chemical, and nuclear terrorist incidents. EPA publishes this alert to gain awareness relate to the possible and environmental concerns.
This policy is drafted by United State Environmental Protection Agency. And their mission is to protect human health and the environment via the development and enforcement with regulations.
This policy is mainly focused on the first responders’ group. As the first responders should immediately take all reasonable efforts to contain the contamination and avoid or mitigate environmental consequences.
The policy is drafted based on the request of CWIRT (Chemical Weapons Improved
Response Team) that concerning the first responders’ liability during a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorist incident. It is about the first responders’ liability for
spreading contamination while attempting to save lives.
The policy can assist the control to water contamination, therefore improve the general public health. “The hazmat team identified the need to collect the water used to decontaminate the victims (deconwater) to avoid a release to the environment.”
The vulnerable populations have addressed in this policy are the populations affected by the environmental contamination. “While the actor-survivors were dying a slow, painful, convulsive death… The contaminated water was collected but the “victims” died.”
This might not receive well enough by the public, as the search results for this policy are main on the government’s website, not as the reference from articles. Even though this policy is not well informed to the public, but in recent days, the general publics do gain much more awareness on water (environmental) contamination.
This policy is a basic guideline for the first responders to gain awareness and take action to relevant environmental contamination incidents.
The policy is to extend Good Samaritan laws to first responders so that they would not be liable for "spreading contamination while attempting to save lives."