Emporia firefighters got some hands-on training on Thursday at Emporia’s water treatment plant.
Wood Ramsey, program manager of McKinzie Environmental in Olathe, said his company was providing Emporia firefighters with hazardous waste operations and emergency response training.
“We provide annual refresher courses for the fire department’s haz mat team,” Ramsey said.
During the lecture portion of the training, the group learned about general chemistry issues, including how to handle chlorine emergencies, Ramsey said.
Firefighters also practiced using chlorine leak kits. Chlorine is a corrosive chemical, Ramsey said, and emergency personnel were shown how to seal up leaks in chlorine tanks using the kits. According to the class manual, there are several chlorine response kits depending on the size of the tank.
Special chemical protective clothing is needed to protect emergency workers when dealing with hazardous chemicals, Ramsey said.
Woods also said firefighters learned about bonding and grounding. Bonding equalizes the electrical potential between pieces of equipment or containers. Grounding is a special form of bonding. Equipment is attached to an earthing electrode or grounding source, which dissipates electrical potential into the ground. Bonding and grounding are done to prevent static discharge, so that chemicals don’t blow up when being handled.
Emporia Fire Chief Jack Taylor said reports from the people who went to the training said it was excellent.
“It certainly will benefit us not only in release of our chlorine gas and chlorine emergencies,” Taylor said. “Those things also tend to apply to all emergencies of that type.”
Taylor said the course wasn’t required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but is part of the department’s annual training.
“It’s one of the things we pursue during the course of each year that we try to keep current,” Taylor said. “We do continual training at all times.”