DEP Law Enforcement and Tallahassee Fire Department Participate in Emergency Response Exercise

"The multi-agency Environmental Response Team provides a statewide capability to enter chemically contaminated environments to collect evidence in support of a criminal investigation, whether it be for an environmental or domestic terrorist event. This support is available to local incident commanders or the state's regional domestic security task forces,” said DEP Division of Law Enforcement Director Henry Barnet. “Our exercise today will test that interagency cooperation with local first responders at an incident site. We sincerely appreciate the support of state law enforcement agencies and the Tallahassee Fire Department Hazardous Materials Response Team for the exercise."

This training will be a full team field exercise focusing on performance capabilities of the team to reinforce the basic technical aspects of assessment, scene processing, and evidence collection of both hazardous/biological chemicals and traditional evidence. The ERT will be working with local first responders, the Tallahassee Fire Department Hazardous Materials Response Team, to strengthen cooperation between the agencies in the event of an emergency.

“This will be a good training experience for the Tallahassee fire department’s Hazmat team. Learning to work with different agencies during a practical training event will better prepare them for an actual Hazmat incident,” said Lt. Zeb Daniels, HAZMAT Coordinator with the Tallahassee Fire Department.

DEP’s Division of Law Enforcement is responsible for statewide environmental resource law enforcement, providing law enforcement services to Florida’s state parks and greenways and trails. Agents investigate environmental resource crimes and illegal dredge and fill activities and respond to natural disasters, civil unrest, hazardous material incidents and oil spills that can threaten the environment.

To report environmental crime, Cingular and Sprint Nextel wireless customers can dial *DEP. Callers can also report environmental crimes to the State Warning Point by calling (800) 320-0519. General environmental inquiries should be directed to DEP district offices during business hours.