shipper, who will respond if he can so do effectively. Alternately, he will 

 ask for the name of the nearest team and will activate that team. In the 

 case of an unknown shipper, Chemtrec can call on the nearest team to provide 

 the necessary assistance. 



The hydrocyanic acid producers have been participating in a mutual 

 assistance plan for a number of years, and also will respond to each others 

 needs. 



Mutual assistance programs have proved to be very valuable to industries 

 shipping hazardous materials and should be expanded greatly. 



In the case of radioactive materials, Chemtrec notifies the appropriate 

 regional office of the U.S. Department of Energy. It then takes respon- 

 sibility for the problems. 



The original, and current, concept of Chemtrec called for the two-step 

 program of providing prewritten information, and activating appropriate ex- 

 pertise. It was realized that no one individual could have the knowledge to 

 handle all the products with which Chemtrec would be involved. As a result, 

 the communicators are not technically trained, but were chosen for their 

 ability to remain cool, to be dedicated, disciplined, and to be efficient in 

 communications. For this reason, the center has been staffed with retired 

 military personnel. In 7.5 years of operation, this has proven to be an 

 effective means of staffing. 



In the 7.5 years since the inception of the program, Chemtrec has re- 

 ceived over 83,000 telephone calls, of which 28,200 involved emergencies. 

 From this, Chemtrec provided information or assistance in over 13,600 

 emergencies. At the inception of the program, we anticipated that the pre- 

 dominate activity would come from the emergency services. As it turns out, 

 they average about 18 percent of the initial calls coming into the center. 

 After several years of operation, we have learned that this is to be expected. 

 When a trailer arrives at a loading dock, and the doors are opened, it is not 

 the firemen who see the leaking drum; it is the dock foreman, or the dock 

 hand. When a tank car blows a rupture disc, or has a leaking relief valve, 

 the railroad yard employee makes the discovery, not the emergency services 

 man. Therefore, it is quite logical that 75 percent of the initial calls come 

 from carrier personnel through a dispatcher. 



When Chemtrec was approved 9 years ago, not many of the ideas of regula- 

 tion or attitude regarding the environment that are present today existed. 

 The primary thrust of the program was to protect people and to a lesser ex- 

 tent, property, and the environment. People continue to be our priority; 

 however, environmental considerations have grown greatly in the program in 

 subsequent years. 



A continuing problem, as evidenced in the opening example, is the 

 heritage and training of fire people who believe that water is a solution to 

 everything. Following a recent pesticide warehouse fire, Chemtrec was called 



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