The Warren County Commissioners have formally disbanded the county’s All Hazards Team.

The team, working under the auspices of the Warren County Emergency Management Agency, has been an informal group providing hazmat response in the county since 1986, according to County Commissioner Ben Kafferlin.

He said the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency has the right to set standards for hazmat teams.

“Unfortunately, based on the 2019 standards and an audit that they performed last year, we do not come close” to the needed hazmat response team, he said.

There used to be space, he outlined, for the team to operate uncertified but the state cautions against that and the liability it would bring.

The cost to bring the All Hazards Team into compliance would be $150,000 upfront and $50,000 annually, Kafferlin said.

The county has been providing hazardous materials response at the operations level — the second-lowest of four response levels. At the operations level, a team is expected to satisfy the requirements of an awareness level response — recognize a potentially hazardous release, protect themselves, call for more advanced help, and secure the scene as best they can — and add the ability to respond at an appropriately safe distance to control the release and prevent it from spreading.

Their efforts are generally expected to be outside of the “hot zone” of an incident.

The county contracts with McCutcheon Enterprises for incidents that require more than an operations level response.

Citing 911 Center data, “the hazard team is called out two to three times a year,” he said. “(I) didn’t think it probably justified the expense.”

In addition to the contract with McCutcheon, Kafferlin said the county-owned equipment can be taken to the scene for utilization by local fire departments, who are legally obligated to respond. He also said the City of Warren Fire Department is hazmat certified and that United Refining has a certified group, as well.

Those entities were called when a tornado several years ago struck the building that housed the All Hazards Team’s equipment.

“We very much appreciate the many year of service,” Kafferlin said of the people that served on the team, specifically highlighting long-time All Hazards TeamChief Gail Anderson and Asst. Chief Kelly Ferrie.