Hazardous Substance Incident Control Week

This week the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is holding the ‘hazardous material incident control week’. During the course of a variety of online activities, people are introduced to the world of Hazardous Substance Incident Control (IBGS in its Dutch initials), and of the partners in the Crisis Expert Team Environment and Drinking Water (CET-md). KWR brings its water expertise to the CET-md.

Meetings are organised on a regular basis to provide detailed information about a specific component of the work of the CET-md. On Tuesday, 5 October 2020, the ‘Week of the IBGS’ began with a webinar, in which Peter Bos (RIVM) explained the new intervention values and substance documents. These show the level of a particular substance’s toxicity at specific concentrations and exposure durations. He explained how this report’s data should be handled, and how they can be applied in the event of an incident. Maaike Sikma, of the National Poison Information Centre (NVIC), then made a presentation on a specific case involving high concentrations of a highly toxic substance. This concerned the phosphine accident at the end of 2019, in which a married couple, captaining an inland vessel, became seriously ill. It is interesting to see how, in the event of an emergency, the different experts work together to contain the impact as much as possible.

KWR is one of the institutes associated with the CET-md. The other seven institutes are KNMI, RIVM/MOD, LIOGS, WMCN/LCM, WFSR, Ministry of Defence/CEAG and UMC/NVIC. Ton van Leerdam and Roberta Hofman are, as representatives of KWR, involved as ‘process managers’ in the CET-md, but the other members of the Water Telephone also play a role in this regard.

This video presents details (in Dutch) on the other partners involved and how exactly the CET-md process works.