Federal Response Assets for a Radioactive Dispersal Device Incident
If a large scale RDD event where to occur in New York City, the magnitude of the problem would likely exceed the capabilities of City and State to effectively respond to the event. New York State could request Federal Assistance if the United States President has not already made the decision to provide it. The United States Federal Government has a well developed protocol to respond to emergencies. The National Response Framework (NRF) describes the process for responding to all types of emergencies including RDD incidents. Depending on the location and type of event, the NRF involves appropriate Federal Agencies, e.g., Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), United States Coast Guard (USCG), Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Federal response to emergencies has been refined and improved over the last thirty years and has been tested on natural disasters (e.g. hurricanes and floods), man-made disasters (oil spills), and terrorist events (9/11). However, the system has never been tested under an actual RDD event. Drills have been conducted with Federal, State, and local agencies to examine the initial (early) phases of such an event (TopOff 2 and TopOff 4). The Planning Guidance for Protection and Recovery Following Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) and Improvised Nuclear Device (IND) incidents issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in August 2008 has never been fully tested in an interagency exercise. Recently, another exercise called Empire 09 that was situated in Albany, New York was conducted. Empire 09 consists of 3 different exercises be held in May and June, 2009. The first exercise, May 2009, involved a table top exercise for phase 1 (0-48 hours) of the response to an RDD incident. In early June, a full-scale 3- day exercise was conducted for the mid-phase response (48 hours +). A few weeks later, a one day full-scale exercise was conducted for the late phase (recovery) response to an RDD event. The lessons learned from this study are not available as of June 30, 2009. The objective of this report is to review and summarize anticipated Federal and State response actions and the roles and responsibilities of various agencies (DHS, EPA, DOE, NY-DEP, NY-DEC) with respect to decontamination issues that would arise from a radiological dispersion device (RDD), e.g., dirty bomb attack. These issues arise in the late phase of the response (48 hours and beyond) after the area has been stabilized and forensic information has been obtained. Much of the information provided in this report is taken directly from published guidance that is readily available.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-98CH10886
- OSTI ID:
- 965880
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-82390-2009; R&D Project: 87535; 600301010; TRN: US200922%%529
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Session 70 - Panel: Consequence Management of a Radiological Dispersion Device
Demonstration of Wide Area Radiological Decontamination and Mitigation Technologies for Building Structures and Vehicles - 16508