City Safety Committee discusses progress on fire department hazards

The Havre City Council’s Safety Committee met Monday to discuss asbestos, lead and diesel exhaust concerns in the city of Havre Fire Department and progress on assessing the problems appears to be being made.

The various issues at the fire department were the subject of a controversy earlier this month with city council member Josh Miller alleging that the city has known about the issue for some time and not done anything about it, and Havre Mayor Doug Kaercher saying his administration only learned about the issue recently and since then has worked to have the problems studied and remedied.

That conflict did not come up Monday as both Kaercher and Miller discussed the issues and where the city is at in terms of addressing them.

Two of the biggest problems at the department is the ceiling texture, which is falling off and has tested positive for asbestos fibers, and the presence of lead in the shooting range, both of which could be serious issues for people who work in those spaces.

Kaercher said when he learned of these issues he reached out to an industrial hygienist in Great Falls who is now in the process of putting together a work plan and will perform a full battery of tests on the building.

He said while tests for asbestos and lead have come back, they still need to examine not just their concentration, but exposure, which will, to some degree, dictate how the issues are dealt with.

He said the issues will be dealt with either way, but if exposure is found to be fairly benign they may build up the funds to remedy the problem over a few years, but if it is found to be dangerous they will devote more resources to it immediately, which will put all other capital improvement projects on hold.

“If there is a risk to employees, when that sampling comes back, we will certainly put as much effort as we can into remedying that issue,” he said.

He also said these test will cover the whole building, not just the fire department.

Kaercher said he was hoping to have the work plan by the time of Monday’s meeting, but he hasn’t heard back from the hygienist since May 9, when he received an email from them saying they still need to acquire the testing supplies necessary for the project.

He said as soon as he hears back he will let the committee know and they will address progress in future city council meetings.

As for the status of the shooting range, Kaercher said, the ventilation system does appear to be broken.

He said the system was checked after concerns were raised in 2018 but the system was found to be working so nothing really came of it.

Between then and now, however, the system does appear to have broken, he said.

Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson said an electrician is coming to look at the system.

Kaercher said the shooting range is being closed permanently but the city will look into using the space for other purposes.

He said this change in use will make the space more likely to receive the Brownfields grant they have applied for to address the lead issue.

This prompted Dave Brewer of Veterans of Foriegn Wars Post 497 to ask if the city would help them find a new location for their shooting activities.

Kaercher said the city didn’t have plans to.

The shooting range under City Hall has hosted the local junior rifle club for decades.

Brewer is running as a Democrat to represent Montana Senate District 14 in this year’s election.

Another issue discussed was diesel exhaust from the fire engines, which has covered the walls of the truck quarters and seeped into other areas as well.

Havre Fire Chief Mel Paulson said they won’t know much about how to move forward until the tests are performed.

Kaercher said he encourages any employee or former employee who has a health problem they believe to be a result of their employment with the city to file a worker’s compensation claim.

The committee also discussed the status of the ambulance the city uses for transfers, which has become so unreliable Paulson said they’ve had to stop using it for transfers entirely.

He said people in a critical condition can still be sent to Great Fall for definitive care via helicopter, but there are certain criteria for that service and without replacing this ambulance they will have to wait for one to be sent from somewhere else, potentially making a two-hour transfer into a five-hour one which he said is hard on patients.

He said the vehicle has become dangerous to use at this point, having broken down in Great Falls three times, once losing power with a patient inside it.

Peterson asked if they can use one of the other two ambulance for transfers and use this one for back up, but Paulson said the standards for what equipment an ambulance they use for calls versus a transfer ambulance are different and the latter doesn’t have all of what the former needs, and considering how many double calls they get, its safer to just bench the vehicle all together.

Kaercher said replacing the ambulance is in the Capital Improvement Plan and the city has raised about $100,000 for it, but they need another $80,000 which they are hoping to get through a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant.

He said if that grant doesn’t come through they will need to put other CIP projects on hold.

Some brought up the idea of renting an ambulance from somewhere else, but Kaercher said any money that goes toward that would be money that could be spent on getting a new one.

Paulson said between the dramatic increase in calls they’ve seen over the past couple years and the COVID-19 pandemic pushing everything out, the ambulance situation has become more complicated, with the vehicles suffering more wear and tear more quickly, and replacements being delivered much more slowly.

He said while they have seen a jump in drug-related calls in recent years, calls of all kinds are going up dramatically.

He said that before the pandemic they were hoping to have a new ambulance by July or August of this year, but now, 18 months for a new ambulance may be the best-case scenario at this point.