For the past 15 years, Tetra Tech has been supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Superfund Technical Assessment and Response Team (START) program in several regions across the country. This program involves providing technical assistance to EPA’s emergency response and preparedness mission related to natural disasters, man-made incidents, and technological hazards, especially accidental chemical or hazardous material releases. Tetra Tech has also supported other activities, including oil and hazardous substance removal actions, site assessments, counterterrorism support, and training. Over the past five years alone, Tetra Tech has completed nearly 2,500 START assignments, including about 500 emergency responses, 300 removal actions, 1,000 Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and brownfields site assessments, and many other projects involving emergency preparedness training and exercises, data management, risk assessments, public outreach, and other activities.

Tetra Tech maintains a network of fully trained and experienced emergency response staff, able to provide 24-hour, seven-day-per-week response services. We also maintain a fleet of response vehicles and warehouses filled with specialized equipment and supplies. Tetra Tech workers have logged 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, for weeks at a time during major national emergencies. We have provided emergency response support for such incidents as industrial plant explosions, chemical fires, train derailments, oil spills, pipeline ruptures, clandestine drug laboratory operations, other hazardous materials releases, chemical and biological agent incidents, and natural disasters, such as floods and hurricanes. Examples of emergency response and post-response projects include the following:

• Provided emergency response support for environmental emergencies that resulted from multiple hurricanes and subsequent flooding that hit Florida and other Gulf Coast and Mid-Atlantic states. Activities included mobile command post setup and operations, damage assessment, written and photographic documentation, and orphan container recovery.
• Responded to a train collision and chlorine release in South Carolina, for which we mobilized 22 personnel within the same day to help with search and rescue, air monitoring, real-time Geographic Information Systems (GIS), staffing an incident command center, and ensuring safe conditions for reoccupation of homes.
• Conducted flood damage inspections, environmental site assessments, data management, and recovery assistance following major flooding in Iowa in 2008, which involved collecting perishable data from more than 2,500 facilities throughout the state.
• Provided emergency response activities to EPA and the City of Greensburg, Kansas, which was struck by an EF-5 tornado, destroying over 95 percent of the town’s 900 structures. Work included cleaning up releases of hazardous substances and debris, assessing electrical transformer oil spill locations, performing air monitoring, and documenting all EPA response activities.
• Provided proactive emergency planning support and pre-deployment for major, high-profile events held across the United States. These events included Democratic and Republican National Conventions, several Super Bowl and Major League All-Star games, NASCAR races, and other large-scale events.

For each of event, Tetra Tech developed a pre-deployment emergency management plan in the case of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear incident; provided on-site monitoring assistance; and worked with representatives from the FBI, DHS, and other federal, state, and local emergency management agencies.

Other key projects include developing and conducting more than 50 full-scale counterterrorism/Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, And Explosive (CBRNE) training exercises for state and local emergency managers, providing emergency management and reconstruction planning services to two county task forces in Pennsylvania, and supporting the development and implementation of EPA’s ASPECT technology decision support tool for detecting and characterizing hazardous releases from an airborne device.

Highlight:
“Owing to the outstanding quality of service, especially in regards to counter-terrorism activities, the government is extremely confident that should there be a need for a critical response, [Tetra Tech] would provide outstanding technical response support. In fact, they have become an invaluable asset to the region’s emergency response program.” –EPA contract performance review