Honeywell account manager Sean Meigs, goes over the new Arearaes air monitoring/plume detection system with the members of the East Liverpool Fire Department to show them how to use the equipment and software for monitoring gas plumes. (Photo by Kristi R. Garabrandt)

EAST LIVERPOOL–Sean Meigs, senior account manager, Honeywell, met with East Liverpool Fire Dept.members Wednesday for their first training on the Arearaes air monitoring/plume detection system.

The system was obtained via grant money.

Meigs spent the morning introducing the firefighters to the equipment and going over how it works and its capabilities. Additional hands-on training in the field will follow at a later date.

The Arearaes, according to Fire Chief Antony Cumo, are able to be transported to an area with the side-by-side and placed as stationary in the instance of a chemical spill or emergency that could affect air quality and be used to chart plumes in the air and read and chart gases in the plumes.

The department received four stationary monitors and two hand-held monitors which will allow two of the four stationary ones to be taken offline and allow someone to walk with a handheld to track plumes.

The four monitors can be set up approximately a mile apart from each other to cover a wide area.

“This would give us a lot better idea of what would be going on instead of having just one monitor and somebody talking over a radio or telling us what they are reading and where they are at. These, we can set up and go,” Cumo said.

Assistant Fire Chief Aaron Jones said the gas monitors can track temperature, air pressure, wind directions and detect a variety of gases that could be in a plume. He also said with the software, if there is a plume of something they can track what direction it is going in and if the area being monitored is safe. If it’s not safe they can monitor the area from miles away and limit the firefighters and the public’s exposure to what could be in the air in that area.

“Without access to this equipment we would not be able to monitor the air or the environment remotely,” Jones said. “You would have to send someone into the unknown with a monitor. If we are on a scene, we know what the hot zone is, we know what the warm zone is, we know what the zone is. We can set these in the cold zone, the warm zone, and not be anywhere near the hazardous environment and still be able to monitor it and no one has to stay. Someone would be there for less than a minute long enough to turn it on and drop it.

Cumo noted that these devices would help them determine what type of gases they could be dealing with.

Cumo also said the department had similar equipment in the past, but it was obsolete.

Funding for the new equipment came from a two-part grant. The first paid for the side-by-side and trailer. The second part of the grant along with the ELFD paid for the air monitoring/plume detection equipment. The monitoring equipment cost approximately $84,000.

The total amount of the grant for the side-by-side, trailer and Arearaes monitors was $142,000.

The new equipment will be used by the fire department for the East Liverpool Haz-Mat team.

Safety Service Director Bill Jones said the grant comes through the Ohio Emergency Management Agency. The fire department was able to apply through the Sustainment Grant through the EMA because they are the only hazardous material team in Columbiana County.

The department got the grant due to being able to show a need for the equipment.

Jones said they initially applied for the grant before the East Palestine Train Derailment, with no success. After the incident in East Palestine, they work the grant application again and was awarded due to being able to show the need for it, since their monitors were unavailable during the incident due to being out-of-date and no longer serviceable.

“We wrote the second grant saying this is not a want, this is a need for us, we had this incident, but we didn’t have the proper equipment to help us mitigate it,” Jones said. I think that helped us get the grant the second time around.”

Jones noted that the only drawback to the system is that it cannot detect chemicals in smoke, but the National Weather Service is able to track smoke.

kgarabrandt@mojonews.com