The Twin Cities are being encouraged to train their own team.

Special teams created here in the aftermath of an industrial disaster that killed thousands half a world away in Bhopal, India, are being trained today to deal with another threat: terrorism.

Hazardous materials – fuels, chemicals, gases and others – are potential weapons of mass destruction, say government officials. They want responders to be able to deal with the danger.

Eight members of the Midcoast “hazmat” team based in Bath received advanced weapons of mass destruction training earlier this spring at the nation’s Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Ala. And Rumford-based MeadWestvaco’s hazmat team has been training with a special response unit of Maine’s National Guard.

Meanwhile, Androscoggin County Emergency Management Agency Director Joanne Potvin hopes Lewiston and Auburn take advantage of new federal grant money that would pay to train and equip firefighters to respond to hazmat or WMD calls.

The Twin Cities now rely on the Rumford- and Bath-based teams, Potvin said. That’s because local firefighters aren’t trained to tackle hazmat incidents. That can be problematic.

MeadWestvaco hazmat team chief Scott Blaisdell called the hour that it takes his team to get to the Lewiston-Auburn area “a critical period.”

Rick Cailler, the union president for Lewiston firefighters, said sooner or later, a quick local response will be needed.

Or worse, someone using a hazardous material as a weapon.

Midcoast team spokesman Jim Simons said the threat of terrorism after Sept. 11 “gave everyone a kick in the butt.”

Some Midcoast team members had early WMD training in Alabama in March 2001, before the World Trade Center and Pentagon were struck by jetliners. Since, though, he said government agencies have been encouraging expanded training of hazmat team members to handle potential sabotage or terrorists attacks.

The team’s advance training covered biological agents and other hazards in addition to the stuff of commerce and industry that moves over Maine’s highways and railroads daily.

Working with the National Guard, Blaisdell’s team members have been taught to examine hazmat incident sites as possible “crime scenes that need to be secured until the FBI gets there.”

Hazmat team members get 40 to 50 hours of basic training and take part in daylong training sessions monthly. They take refresher courses for recertification. Some members get advanced training such as the WMD course.

Equipment includes computers with programs that spell out protocols to handle various hazardous materials, special protective suits, breathing apparatus, hoses, tools and even devices that can sniff the air to detect gases.

Blaisdell said hazmat teams are being organized in the Norway-Paris and Bridgton areas.

Simons said the Midcoast team consists largely of firefighters now. They come from departments in Bath, Brunswick, New Gloucester, Poland, Lisbon and Yarmouth, he said, as well as members from Brunswick Naval Air Station, Bath Iron Works and other industries.

Jim Bennett, Lewiston’s city administration, said he’d love to see firefighters from his city trained as hazmat technicians. That’s another aspect of a plan he floated earlier to expand emergency services to include medical response and transport.

Cailler and his Auburn counterpart, Mike Scott, say it makes sense to train Lewiston and Auburn firefighters to respond to hazmat accidents or other incidents. But Bennett estimated the cost of that training at $1 million. Much of that could be offset with federal Homeland Security grant money, but Bennett said there would still be “some cost to local taxpayers.”

Any cost right now is too much, he said, given the city’s tight budget situation.

Auburn City Manager Pat Finnigan said she’s eager to hear more about federal funds available to train and equip an Androscoggin County hazmat team. In part to ensure Auburn wouldn’t be left short-handed in the event of a hazmat call-out and fire simultaneously, Finnigan noted, “I think it might be best to do it as a cooperative venture involving other fire departments,” echoing a sentiment voiced by Scott.

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