Shoreline
Members of a stakeholders group met Oct. 23 to review a draft of a Risk and Safety Assessment for the state’s Public Health Laboratory.
“Some of the scenarios we looked at may be kind of scary,” Scott Dwyer, program manager of the Kleinfelder consulting team that conducted the report said. “They could have consequences that are of a concern to the community but we have to keep them in context or remember that the probability of most of those events is very, very low.”
Work on the first-of-its-kind assessment began in August. The team was tasked with creating a report that would evaluate the laboratory and evaluate any potential threats its existence posed to the surrounding community. Group members helped design a scope of work for the evaluation. During the most recent meeting, group members carefully combed through the 100-page draft report, asking questions and providing comments to the consulting team.
“I tried to look at this (report) as a reader who knows nothing,” Jan Stewart, a representative-at-large in the stakeholder group said. “A lot of people are going to read this who don’t know what ‘Best Practices’ means.”
In addition to making clarifications to the draft report, members of the stakeholder group addressed concerns regarding the proximity of the laboratory to vulnerable populations in adult family homes and on the Fircrest campus.
Members of the surrounding population may have a difficult time understanding if a worst case scenario from the laboratory were to occur, several stakeholders mentioned.
“Vulnerability is much more compromised to these people,” stakeholder Jeff Flesner, business manager at Fircrest said.
The report included comparing the 70,000 square-foot facility to 12 other public health labs across the country with similar mission statements and surrounding populations, Dwyer said. The team did not assess the safety records of the other labs and found few practices underway that weren’t mandated by state and federal guidelines.
“They were a little surprised to get questions form us and surprised we were even doing a study like this,” Dwyer said. “In terms of best practices we didn’t learn very much.”
The Kleinfelder team was able to conclude that the state’s Public Health Laboratory is in compliance with state and federal regulations and that the most probable risks that would occur within the lab are unlikely to propose a hazard to the community based on mechanisms, systems, programs, policies and equipment inside of the lab to prevent releases outside the facility. However, the report includes a number or recommendations including reviewing the storage of certain chemicals, keeping more detailed records of minor and infrequently used materials, and adding a security camera.
The laboratory hopes to implement many of the recommendations in the report, according to assistant secretary of the Department of Health Jude Van Buren but some of those changes may require assistance from the state legislature.
“We don’t see where the concerns are all of the time or see where we could be doing things a little differently,” she said. “My goal is to try and move everything in the recommendations.”
The stakeholder group will help welcome community members to the Public Health Laboratory at 1610 NE 150th St. on Nov. 6 to discuss the draft Risk and Safety Assessment. The public meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Laboratory tours will be offered prior to the meeting, starting at 4 p.m. Those who are interested in a tour are asked to please arrive no later than 5:15 p.m.
Citizen comments about the draft report can be submitted in person at the meeting or via e-mail at Risk.Safety@doh.wa.gov.
Comments will be accepted until Nov. 11 and a final report will be completed by the end of November. The draft report is available on the Public Health Laboratory Web site at www.doh.wa.gov.
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