Environmental emergency communication updates set

October 14, 2013

Updates by Michigan to an environmental emergency communication system could improve the response to problems in waterways including those along the U.S.-Canadian border, officials said.

Environmental accident information is sent through Michigan's Pollution Emergency Alerting System. For years, The Detroit News reported, emergency calls have been handled by a call center staffed by private contractors.

In some previous cases, the call-takers were unfamiliar with technical terms used to describe environmental accidents and calls consequently were often prioritized poorly or handled more slowly than was warranted, said Bruce Van Otteren, administrator of Michigan's alerting system.

In the coming months, a team of trained Michigan Department of Environmental Quality staffers is to begin handling those calls internally. An automatic "smart messaging" system then will forward information to emergency and government officials.

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