The Emergency Response Teams (ERTs) in the middle region of Taiwan was established in 2006, this project employed the trained twenty-four members who were assigned to two locations at Tai-Chung’s Central Taiwan Science Park Team (Taichung CTSP team) and Yulin’s Douliou Industrial Park Team (Yunlin team). The teams had responded to 17 incidents (sixteen for Taichung team and fifteen for Yunlin team) and including 6 response simulations. Among those, there was one for Number One Operation (incident involving toxic chemicals), seven for Number Two Operation (incidents with manufacturers operating toxic chemicals), four for Number Three Operation (involving chemicals), and three for Number Four Operation (involving unknown substances) as well as two supporting missions to other regions. To categorize those hazardous material incidents by types, there were eleven involving fires, one of gas explosion, and four of leaking chemicals. The average arrival time to the emergency site after the assignment was 46 minutes--meeting the requirement of responding within one hour 100%. Among activities of prevention incidents, the ERTs also assisted in 84 consultation toxic chemical operating management and emergency response, 36 unannounced tests to toxic chemical factories, and assisting in reviewing emergency response plans for 70 factories with local environmental protection bureaus. This project also hosted eight law orientations, eight advisory and eight promotion seminars, two one day-training for governmental units and two one-day training for factories. The ERTs also attended in 12 exercises involving toxic chemical or hazardous materials. Further, 2 mutual support teams(Formosa Petrochemical and Chiang-Pen Transportation Corporation) assisted in various responses and trainings to strengthen the response capability in central Taiwan. This project have already accomplished many prevention activities including provided consultation, unannounced tests, promotion, training and various field exercises and response activities for day-to-day operation. During the emergencies, this project provided consultation information, monitoring and sampling, control and containment of environmental pollution, decontamination, site restoration and incident review to lessen the impacts of toxic chemical incidents to our environment.

central Taiwan;toxic chemical;emergency response;prevention