Terrorism becomes an issue in election of Lake County’s coroner
By Ellen Cannon
The issue of terrorism may not be a critical concern in 2012 national political debates but it has become one in the election for coroner of Lake County, Illinois.
According to the Daily Herald, Dr. Thomas Rudd who is facing a primary election against incumbent Coroner Artis Yancey in the March 20 Democratic Primary, expressed concern about nuclear terrorism, accidental radiation exposure, biological attacks and the contamination of the Great Lakes as an issue that should concern the coroner’s office.
Dr. Rudd claims that his particular skills and training in nuclear medicine and microbiology would assist him as coroner to “notice signs of an attack such as a deputy who returns to the office coughing up blood.” Dr. Rudd contends that “In this day and age, we have the possibility of nuclear terrorism. The coroner’s deputies are going to be called in and they have no protection. They don’t know if they are entering an area with radiation.” Dr. Rudd suggests that if elected “he intends to give the deputy coroner’s matchbook-sized radiation detectors.” He said, “My concern is that our deputy coroners come into contact with radioactive sources that we don’t know about either through an accident or a terrorist event. By having this radiation detector they can be alerted…and we can call the appropriate government authorities.”
During an interview at the Daily Herald on Thursday, Dr. Rudd further suggested that a concern with the health of the deputy coroners could also stem from a truck accident which leaks poisonous materials, an anthrax poisoning, a dirty bomb or a terror attack at the airport.
Incumbent Coroner Yancey finds talk of terror concerns informing the role of coroner “utterly absurd and ridiculous” Yancey said, “My opponent would like to scare voters into believing that he would have some magical way of handling this or making sure this did not happen.” Yancey views Rudd’s concerns as “low level fears” and further suggests that the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies are better equipped to handle such emergencies than the coroner’s office.”
Whoever wins the primary election for coroner on March 20 or the November election which includes Republicans Steve Newton and Howard Cooper, the significance of Rudd’s remarks is his injection of “preparedness” to man-made or natural disasters by all levels of community responders as a critical issue for voters to be concerned about.
According to Dr. Irwin Redlener, leading expert on U.S. preparedness to terror attacks, nuclear power plant accidents or natural disaster, “It is fair to say that that the U.S. has not reached a single goal of preparedness ten years after 9/11 and six years following Katrina.” Dr. Redlener, Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and a member of the National Commission on Children and Disasters notes that “preparedness” is a series of integrated processes having five elements which must be carefully coordinated. These five elements include (1) extensive, appropriate, and intelligent planning; (2) sufficient investment in preparedness efforts; (3) smart coordinated leadership; (4) integration of private sector and volunteer organizational assets, and (5) a prepared public. According to Dr. Redlener and top policy analysts, none of these essential components are presently in place at a level to properly respond to emergencies, disasters, or a terror incident.
The suggestion that “the federal government and Homeland Security” can handle an incident is factually incorrect. While improvements and positive developments have been made since 9/11, the primary feature of emergency response remains institutional fragmentation and lack of integration as to who does what during a major incident. According to a CNN interview with Dr. Redlener on March 14, 2011, “Administrative fragmentation between government agencies is a critical issue that has not been resolved.”…”There is no question that, in addition to the extraordinary fragmentation of disaster response strategies in the U.S., virtually every aspect of planning has been underfunded for the past decade…Hospital disaster planning is deeply undermined by the absence of sufficient resources needed to make appropriate preparations; natural disaster early warning systems lag far behind that of Japan; not a single city in the nation has begun to get serious about nuclear terrorism and so on.”
Congressman Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), a leading voice in the Congress regarding continued under-preparedness underscores Dr. Redlener’s concerns. Rep. Markey says that confusion as to which agency does what during a mega-disaster, particularly a nuclear disaster remains very problematic. Both these experts argue that fragmentation regarding disaster policy is so extensive that it results in “ad hoc decision making rather than policy decisions based on empirical analysis and integrated agency planning. This might cause officials to “hesitate to make decisions because of uncertainty regarding their legal authority to act.” (John Schwartz, New York Times, 3/15/2011)
According to the current federal disaster response plan, the agency that would lead the response to a nuclear disaster would depend on “the source and the nature of the release.” Thus, the lead agency in charge during a nuclear crisis would differ with the scenario. According to this plan, writes Sasha Chavkin of ProPublica, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could respond to a release from a nuclear power plant, the Department of Energy would coordinate response to a crisis involving nuclear weapons in its custody, and the Department of Homeland Security would lead the response to a deliberate attack.(March 16, 2011)
Congressman Edward Markey experienced first-hand the shock of inter-agency confusion regarding potential nuclear disasters and wrote to President Obama about this on March 13, 2011. “I wrote to Obama explaining that officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who briefed my staff were confused about their roles and about which agencies should be taking the lead. I told him that “In terms of the absence of inter-departmental and inter-agency cohesion, clarity, and integration during a nuclear incident, serious health problems, potential loss of life, as well as cost and personnel efficiency problems could emerge as serious issues.” (Rep. Markey, Letter to President Obama, 3/13/2011)
Following the Fukushima nuclear plant melt down both Senators Dick Durbin (D) and Mark Kirk (R) held a forum at the Dirksen Building during which the two senators raised serious safety and medical concerns to experts representing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Argonne National Laboratory, and Exelon Corp., which operates the reactors in the state.(www.suntimes.com8/4/2011)
Illinois is the most nuclear state in the United States with eleven nuclear reactors. Four of the state’s reactors are almost identical to those in the Japan crisis. Located at the Dresden and Quad Cities generating stations, they are the same model and nearly the same age as those at Japan’s Fukushima plant. Both of these plants are a concern to environmental and health groups as they received 20 year license extensions after surpassing their original 40 year life span. In addition, the issue of storage of the enormous amounts spent fuel close to populated areas is a serious concern.
The concerns and roles of the coroner’s office does involve key health concerns and appropriate and legal concerns surrounding death. The meaning of first responders is steadily increasing as America aims to integrate all functionaries that can be of assistance during disasters of all kinds. All disasters are ultimately local. The introduction of terrorism concerns into the election debates for coroner is not strange or scary. It introduced the issue of disaster preparedness to the public in a manner that might add to the strength of first responders as well as help to promote a culture of preparedness Lake County among voters.
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