HAZMAT training for area arranged

Tom Santry, Brewster County’s “master of disaster” — as County Judge Val Beard fondly calls him — has arranged a HAZMAT training course for county and area first responders on Nov. 8, a short course agreed to by Union Pacific after two recent close calls involving UP trains.

The emergency management coordinator briefed the Commissioners Court last Thursday on the planned course that will be closed to the public. However, county and regional firefighters and officials who manage natural and man-made disasters are expected to get up-close training on handling tank cars containing hazardous waste. UP and Air Liquide Co. are bringing tank and HAZMAT (hazardous materials) training rail cars to Alpine in what Santry and Beard called a positive PR move.

“I’m pleased at this response” by Union Pacific, Beard said. “This is good.”

“They’re trying to make amends,” Santry added, for a perceived callous response to the Aug. 30 incident in which argon gas leaked from three UP rail cars.

The cars were parked in the Alpine city limits before Alpine Volunteer Fire Department crews could cap the leaks. At the time, Union Pacific officials left local emergency responders dangling for hours before agreeing to move the cars out of town. That occurred only after 400 or so people living near the incident scene could be evacuated. Only six months earlier, 85 cars of a 124-car Union Pacific train derailed in Alpine late at night, spilling a substance similar to mineral oil. But until the substance could be identified, area homes, businesses and Alpine Middle School had to be evacuated and/or closed. It took hours for a specialized Union Pacific HAZMAT team to arrive from El Paso.

Jerri Jones, the county elections administrator, reported that as of last Thursday, 787 of Brewster County’s 6,481 registered voters had cast early ballots for the Nov. 4 general election. “If we continue to have this turnout, a couple of hundred each day for several days,” she said, “we’ll get more than a 40 percent turnout.”

At Thursday’s meeting, commissioners also heard a presentation on county employees’ dental insurance from broker Paul Martin, who outlined new benefits called “dental rewards” for preventive care, likening them to rollover minutes on a cell-phone plan. He said rates won’t change.

Judy Ford, vice president of the Sunshine House board of directors, outlined a Texas Department of Agriculture grant called Texans Feeding Texans, which she said would help deliver meals to more than 1,200 county residents in need.

Ford said she would like to see the Sunshine House, a nonprofit agency, offer the meals. “We can’t apply for a grant unless you sign a resolution,” she told commissioners, who readily agreed to sign up.

When commissioners turned to pending infrastructure projects, they learned that the architect’s revisions haven’t been completed. Beard said she wants the plans for some of the buildings made more economical before commissioners take action.

In other action, commissioners: