Training grants for responders to flammable train derailments

Department of Transportation grants will support training for first responders in rural areas who may encounter train derailments with potentially flammable loads.    The U.S. Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will give out three grants totaling $5.9 million to provide hazardous materials training for volunteer or remote emergency responders that may encounter rail accidents involving potentially flammable liquids, such as crude oil and ethanol.
   The Assistance for Local Emergency Response Training (ALERT) grants were made available through the 2015 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act.
   “It’s critical that first responders have the information and training they need to respond to these types of incidents, and is one of more than a dozen actions the department has taken in recent months to strengthen the safe transportation of crude oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids by rail,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in a statement.
   Grants from PHMSA are funded by annual user registration fees paid by shippers and carriers of certain hazardous materials. During grant period 2013-14, the grants funded more than 91,000 first responders in initial or refresher hazmat response training, over 1,300 new or revised hazmat emergency response plans and 950 hazmat exercises, according to DOT.
   The three grants were awarded to the Center for Rural Development in Somerset, Ky. ($2.67 million); the International Association of Fire Chiefs in Fairfax, Va. ($2.65 million); and the University of Findlay’s All Hazards Training Center in Findlay, Ohio.