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High School Students in Chelsea Stage Mock Chemical Disaster For End of Year Project

Release Date: 05/16/2000
Contact Information: Amy Miller, EPA Press Office (617-918-1042)

BOSTON - Students from Chelsea Public High School, local emergency planning officials, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state officials will stage a mock hazardous materials spill on Wednesday, May 17. The agencies participating will set up equipment between 8 and 9:15 am for the spill, which will simulate gasoline being spilled off a barge in Chelsea.

The half-day event will take place at the Gulf Oil Terminal at 281 Eastern Ave. in Chelsea. Mindy S. Lubber, Regional Administrator for EPA New England, will make brief remarks at 9:30 am before the exercise begins.

The mock emergency is part of the Chelsea Environmental and Education Project, a program involving the high school, local emergency planning officials, the state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The goal of this project is to help Chelsea city officials prepare for and prevent chemical accidents; to increase the number of Chelsea facilities in compliance with right-to-know laws, and to empower high school students by teaching them how to uses computer programs, in particular the Geographic Information System mapping software, called CAMEO (Computer Aided Management of Emergency Operations).

The 125 Chelsea high school students who have gone through this program have emerged with a better understanding of their community. They can now look at problems in their neighborhood with regard to emergency readiness and help analyze them.

Since the project began four years ago, 70 new companies have come into compliance with the federal right-to-know law, called the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act. Students in the high school's GIS class worked with companies and city officials to help prepare the community for emergencies. This mock accident, involving the release of heptane, is the final project in their class.