What it’s really like…..
All too often I get asked, “Soooo, what is it that you do?” Most people think a career in Environmental Health means working with the EPA saving trees and pushing environmental laws and protection. Others think, oh, the Health Department, that means, we inspect restaurants to see if kitchens are clean and worthy of an “A” letter grading. Then I tell them I deal with hazardous materials and a peculiar look comes about. “You mean the stuff that makes you glow in the dark?” “Oh, like moon suits like Walter White and Jessie Pinkman in Breaking Bad?” In all reality, it is so much more.
Every Environmental Health (EH) department is different, but each and every one of them is dedicated to ensure and protect the health of our communities and environment. EH plays a proactive and innovative role in addressing many of the challenges that face the health of our communities. From the protection of our food from food borne illness outbreaks, safe ground water supply to ensuring the safe handling and storage of hazardous chemicals, surveillance of vector-driven disease such as West Nile Virus to the plague, we protect you, your family, and our community and environment every day.
Environmental health safeguards the community and works hand in hand with first responders to prepare for emergencies and disasters. They also provide technical assessment, response, and resource capabilities to make safe and provide for a resilient community.
As an Environmental Health Specialist in the Hazardous Materials program here in California, I’d have to say my job kicks a@! and it’s pretty dang awesome. I work with businesses that test and design suborbital vehicles, wind and solar energy companies, farmers, oil and gas refineries, food processing plants, chemical manufacturers, auto mechanics and so many more. My team and I ensure that businesses properly handle, store, and transport hazardous materials and hazardous waste safely. Inspections and audits are conducted to ensure local businesses operate in a safe manner in order to prevent impacts such as releases to the community. Inspections typically involve a thorough review of all chemical inventories, safety procedures, release prevention and control protocols, accidental histories, complaints, and compliance under state and federal regulations. The way I see it is, if a business practices safety and has allocated resources to compliance laws, their adherence to their safety culture resonates throughout their workplace. This makes my job way easier. Through education, cooperation, and fair application of health and safety standards, EH is committed to ensuring the safety of our communities.
So let’s go back to the moon suit. Yes, I wear one of those too. I respond to the hairiest and quite often the strangest calls dealing with hazardous materials with Fire and Law Enforcement agencies on a daily basis. Whether it’s a pesticide overspray on innocent nearby farm workers, train derailment carrying methyl ethyl death, tanker fire, kids playing with mercury, drug labs, unknown spilled substances, toxic cloud release, rescues in confined space, or an unknown explosion at a chemical plant, we’re there 24/7. Sometimes, hazmat incidents are a matter of life and death. Tough decisions must be made in a matter of seconds. Each of those decisions lead you to different outcome and consequence. You better believe that the decision you made brings everyone home safely at the end of the incident.
So if you see yourself doing something like this, or just want more information, check out your local Environmental Health department in your community. Hazardous materials emergency response teams and local hazardous materials regulatory agencies may have varying authorities and mutual aid agreements that may slightly be different in your state and local area.
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