City council extends contract to house hazmat team until 2027

After formally adopting the Oneida County hazardous materials team in January, the Rhinelander City Council voted to extend its contract with Wisconsin Hazardous Materials Response System Services Monday night, which will allow for regional hazmat coverage until 2027.

The city took over the team in January because the county was ending support of the team as Oneida County personnel that managed the program were “dwindling,” according to Rhinelander Fire Chief Brian Tonnancour, and the team was already mostly made up of Rhinelander firefighters.

“In order to keep it going we’ve decided to take it over from Oneida County,” Tonnancour said at a Jan. 13 city council meeting. “It will fall under Rhinelander fire and we’ll open it up, we’ve already talked to some neighboring department volunteers for this.”

Rhinelander’s hazmat team, along with Wausau’s, is a type 2 team, which means they can “enter and identify chemicals in a hazardous materials response,” Tonnancour said.

The team helps provide coverage for the northeastern region, which reaches as far south as Oshkosh, as far west as Marshfield and north to the Michigan border. The Rhinelander team is the northernmost team in the region, so it is likely the first response for many northern counties.

“If we don’t take this on we’ll be waiting for Ashland to come down or Wausau to come up to respond to any hazardous materials incidents in this area,” Tonnancour said in January. “In order to keep the team viable, we probably should take this over.”

The state contract offers funding for the team, with the expectation that they will respond to a state-activated hazardous materials incident in their region. Tonnancour said “there have been zero state activated hazmat responses” since the team was formed in the early 2000s.

Tonnancour said the team has a right to pass on responding to a state-activated incident if “they cannot supply the resources or it puts the city at a disadvantage.”

While the team hasn’t responded to a state-activated incident, they have been used for response to mutual aid box alarm system (MABAS) calls — most recently (as of Monday) to supply soaking pads for a car leaking gas.

“A lot of our MABAS responses are not real hazmat responses,” Tonnancour said. “The last ‘real hazmat response’ we had was up in Crandon. I was personally on that one and we called Wausau immediately to respond with us to ensure we had the manning and the personnel and that we didn’t leave Rhinelander unsupported.”

Tonnancour said firefighters are required to complete “24 to 40 hours” of hazmat training annually for the team.

Funding advantages

Tonnancour told the city council Monday that the team receives $16,500 annually to fund training and equipment.

That funding appears to have been a boon for the fire department, as Tonnancour said in the past it’s been used to fund annual physicals for hearing tests and to purchase self-contained breathing apparatus masks and tanks, firefighter’s personal protection equipment, radios, firefighting foam, vehicle parts, training, air compressor maintenance, gear racks and computers.

In return, “there’s no cost to the city,” Tonnancour said.

“It’s very little impact,” he said. “It’s stuff that this department would already respond to in this city anyways. This gives us the tools and the equipment training to do so and to better protect the citizens of Rhinelander — and not just Rhinelander but the surrounding communities as well.”

If the contract was not extended by the city and abandoned, remaining state funds would be returned and all state-funded equipment would be re-allocated to another team.

Tonnancour said the state funding and the resources it provides will be crucial to supporting the fire department’s budget in the coming years.

“We’re already talking about what are we going to cut for next year’s budget,” Tonnancour said. “Last year we cut somebody already. We are not going to fund our additional firefighter position because we know that with negotiations going on and other things that we won’t be able to fund that position already. So we’re already being affected by the budgetary restraints we have.”

Readiness concerns

Earlier in the meeting, during the public comment period, firefighter Josh Schmitz, 24-year member of the RFD, spoke out in opposition to the program, citing the limitations it could put on department coverage.

“What is the city’s plan for when we have to go into ‘Anytown, USA’ to cover a hazmat call and we’re going to leave the city dry with no people?” Schmitz asked the council. “We have ambulances to cover, we have citizens to take care of, we have businesses to protect. What’s the plan? There is no plan. It’s not safe to do this right now.”

Schmitz urged the city council to “ask the questions” and said he doesn’t believe the city is ready to make a vote on this issue — and that the RFD isn’t prepared to take on the duties.

“These guys need a pile of more training. They are not prepared to take on this,” Schmitz said. “None of us have hazmat training. We are not prepared for it.”

The public comment session of the meeting does not allow for council members to engage in a dialogue with speakers, but council man Tom Barnett brough up Schmitz’s concerns to Tonnancour during the discussion later in the meeting.

“I have to address the elephant in the room, there seems to be a divide between what you’re telling us here and what someone in your department had brought up earlier,” Barnett said. “I like to make sure things are in unison.”

Barnett then asked Tonnancour to address the differing opinions of his staff.

“As with anything else, there are additional requirements for them and I do understand that,” Tonnancour said. “This is already part of our training throughout the year. We are stretched thin. We are just another one of those departments that is being asked to do more with less. I think there are avenues for them to take. They have taken those avenues, we’re at that point, so, this is, we believe, management’s rights. My answer is that everything can’t be a democracy. I’m sorry but I’m here to make the tough decisions when they have to be made. Sometimes they’re not the most popular decisions and I understand that, but that’s why I’m here. Thats why [the Police and Fire Commission] hired me. That’s my job.”

Council member Steven Jopek, who made the motion in January to approve the city’s adoption of the team, echoed some concerns raised earlier in the meeting.

“I do have concerns about the extra requirements on a short staff. I understand that there is a budgetary boost here but I worry about morale and I worry about the quality of firefighters we’re putting out there for the amount of work they’re doing because they’re already incredibly vital to our city,” Jopek said. “Everything is gray, so what you’re trying to do is very honorable but I do worry in the long run. I don’t want to see it dissolve but at the same time we have to take care of our own.”

With the contract deadline being July 1, the city council had to bring the matter to a vote Monday night. 

The council voted 7-1 in favor of extending the contract with Jopek the only dissenting vote.

Michael Strasburg may be reached at [email protected].