Threat Assessments and Preparedness Work Highlights

Within hours of the first anthrax attacks in October 2001, GEOMET established a coordinated response center with dedicated phone lines, established procedures for field-team deployment and GEOMET biological warfare lab (BSL2/3) culturing and analysis, and managed the development of a tracking and on-line reporting system. Over a period of 1½ months, the response center deployed to more than 200 separate Government and private sites and collected over 5,500 samples. We deployed teams to Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Minnesota, Illinois, and California. Clients included the Washington Post, CNN/AOL, ABC Television, the Wall Street Journal, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the IRS, the Pentagon, Walter Reed Army Hospital, the General Services Administration, and numerous other public and private concerns. During ramp up of the anthrax work, we doubled the capacity of our Biological Laboratory to meet the unprecedented testing demand and, more recently, completed a five-fold expansion of the BioLab, with expanded testing capability and equipment. Within the next few weeks, the Lab will complete development of a new Bio-Safety Level 3 suite.

GEOMET staff have participated in numerous bioterrorism and chemical excercises, including: two excercises at the Pentagon facility (one chem, one bio); first-responder excercises in Boston, NYC, Washington, Oklahoma City, Colorado, and numerous counties in Virginia; DOD-related chem/bio excercises in Germany, Iceland, and other locations; and leader of planning excercises in Wisconsin, New York State, New Hampshire, Idaho and in four Canadian provinces. We have also provided personal protective equipment (PPE) training for first responders and hospital personnel, and are actively involved in LEPC activities in areas near our headquarters. We recently supported a terrorism-related threat and vulnerability assessment for the U. S. Air Force Academy, including an evaluation of facilities and utility systems for strengths and weaknesses against potential attacks.On completion of facility/utility assessment, a requirements charrette was performed to collect requirements from the facility users and address facility vulnerabilities to a terrorist attack.

Concurrently, a threat assessment was accomplished using inputs from the FBI, the Air Force Office of Special Investigation, and local law enforcement.
Other examples of special CB assessments by GEOMET staff include:

• Support to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for high-level, classified biological defense against terrorism.
• Support in mail-handling and related homeland security operations and vulnerability assessments for Government agencies including the Pentagon, DOT, Census Bureau, and U.S. House of Representatives, along with private-sector entities.
• Bioterrorism planning support to the White House mail/media handling facility located at an offsite GSA center.
• Bioterrorism technical support to EPA's Office of Emergency Prepardedness, including assistance in development of a guidance document for response to biological terrorism.
• Numerous water vulnerability efforts in locations such as Atlanta and San Jose, including reviews of in-place plans against biological attack as well as future recommendations.
• CB support to the Washington Metro transit system in terms of response planning, releases in the system and environmental compliance.

One of our key business lines is the design, development, testing and deployment of high-quality biological and chemical protection systems for the U.S. Government, first responders and others supporting homeland defense. Our clients include the U.S. Marine CBIRF unit, a response group dedicated to WMD attacks and CST-Civil Support Teams. We also are developing an enhanced biological warfare protective system for the DOD Office of Counter-Terrorism and Technology.