With this application, the Alabama Fire College (AFC) Workplace Safety Training Program (WST) proposes to continue delivering model NIEHS-funded training to two worker populations – members and employees of Native American tribes nationwide and Public Safety Personnel within the southeastern U.S. Both target populations face significant health and safety risks due to potential exposure to hazards during (1) emergency response to uncontrolled releases of hazardous materials (hazmats), (2) emergency response to disasters caused by terrorist attacks, accidental hazmat releases, or severe weather events, and (3) work assessing and remediating uncontrolled hazardous waste dumps. They also face highly dangerous illicit drug use and manufacture. All these emergencies represent significant hazards to the health and safety of the responders and the communities they serve. The 573 federally recognized Native American tribes include 1.9 million members living in the contiguous 48 states and Alaska on over 50 million acres of land through which run hundreds of thousands of miles of rivers, roads, and railroad rights-of-way, making transportation accidents a significant threat. Additionally, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 74,870 firefighters, 53,500 emergency medical technicians and paramedics and 137,740 police and sheriff’s patrol officers in the southeastern states where the program has been most active: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. AFC will be joined by Native American Fish and Wildlife Society to promote the proposed training to tribal emergency response personnel. AFC/WST will use the growing network of contacts developed over its 32-year history (as WST) as well as the broader AFC’s leadership in North American Fire Training Directors and other networks of training providers to carry training to public sector responders. This training will include existing courses in topics such as hazardous materials emergency response, incident command systems, air monitoring, mass casualty incident triage, confined space rescue, illicit drug response, and responder safety during natural and man-made disasters. Hazardous materials training will be expanded to Hazmat Technician level and hazardous waste worker initial and refresher training will be added to the training plan. The training will be delivered directly by AFC instructors and through secondary training by trainees who take the training back to their tribes and local agencies. AFC instructors are projected to directly train over 2,565 Native American responders and over 2,805 public sector responders in both programs. In addition, peer trainers will use AFC materials to train an additional 1,080 of their peers. In total for the five years, AFC projects to conduct over 360 classes to over 6,450 trainees in 98,600 contact hours through direct and secondary training.

AFC Project Narrative The Workplace Safety Training Program of the Alabama Fire College proposes to provide training to Native American and public sector emergency response personnel that will prepare them to safely respond to hazardous materials releases resulting from transportation and industrial incidents, natural and manmade disasters, and illicit drug use and manufacture. Both target populations are charged with responding to such emergencies by Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Department of Transportation, and Department of Homeland Security regulations, but do not have sufficient budgets and resources to provide such training. The proposed project will bring critical training to over 6,400 responders in both populations that will help them to better protect themselves and the communities they serve.