Risk Wise

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Development of an Environmental

Surveillance Network for South Carolina, USA

G. Scott, S. Cross, W. McFee and S. Morton, NOAA; J. Miglarese, FedSolve; K. Kirkwood,

J. Burdine and J. Richter, University of South Carolina; L. Brock, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources;

A. Caver and M. Martin, Clemson University Livestock & Poultry Health Programs;

E. Covington, S. Finklea, P. Lee and J. Rice, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control;

J. Davis and T. Murphy, South Carolina Emergency Management Division;

J. Shelton and E. Strom, USGS, South Carolina Water Science Center

ince the 9/11 attack on the United States there has been a

significant focus on preventing future attacks, including

development of new methods that may more rapidly detect

an event and may save lives and property as a result. Bioterrorism

is a real threat that may affect both environmental and human

health in many different ways. The more recent emphasis on

homeland security as a separate national preparedness effort

distinct from the national emergency preparedness response

efforts has created gaps in planning among state and federal

agencies. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has

provided guidance in a coordinating role by providing account-

ability and integrated communications among the agencies most

depended upon to respond to disasters. DHS thus becomes the

single point-of-contact for federal, state and local entities.

As a result, the DHS has established target capabilities including envi-

ronmental monitoring and assessment, environmental health, natural

resources and restoration, and natural hazards monitoring as key

areas for technology development and detection.

In both human

health and the general environment, there are certain keystone indi-

cators that may serve to inform public health and environmental

managers that adverse effects from a homeland security event are

being detected and observed – adverse effects that may warrant addi-

tional oversight, review and response by emergency preparedness

and law enforcement agencies. In the public health setting, surges

in emergency room admissions, increased number of prescriptions

for medicines used to abate certain types of infections or illnesses,

and increased number of hospitalizations may be early indicators

that something unusual is occurring. Because some bioterrorist

events may exhibit symptoms that mimic a natural disease outbreak,

bioterrorism preparedness often rests in large part on public health

preparedness.

While the West Nile virus outbreak is considered by

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to have been

a naturally occurring event, at one point there was speculation that

it might have had an unnatural (bioterrorist) origin. The ensuing

investigation and post-outbreak assessments illustrate the challenges

in identifying the source of an outbreak, supporting officials’ views

that public health preparedness is a key element of bioterrorism

preparedness.

This stems in part from a lack of understanding of

ecosystem responses to unusual events.

The vulnerabilities and risk associated with incidents

of national significance involving natural ecosystems are

economically, socially and environmentally significant.

All natural ecosystem incidents, accidents or natural

disasters require a fuller understanding with regards to

scope and scale of resiliency. The complexities of ecosys-

tems bring special kinds of challenges to the emergency

preparedness responder during an incident. The respon-

der may have insufficient knowledge about ecosystem

changes that may occur and be important in determin-

ing long-term remediation, restoration and recovery

efforts. Utilizing natural disasters, and unplanned acci-

dents or incidents and through post-incident analysis,

emergency management personnel may gain keen

insight, resulting in many lessons learned.

In natural ecosystems, adverse environmental events

such as fish kills and unusual mortality events among

natural resource keystone species, can serve as early

warning indicators of adverse conditions that may

potentially affect the general public. Understanding

these natural resource mortalities on any given day and

time of year may assist in the timely identification of an

intentional or overt biological/chemical act of terrorism.

Additionally, these natural resource species may serve

as the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ in the early detection

of bioterrorism events. Currently there are many

ongoing environmental monitoring and assessment

activities distributed among various federal and state

agencies, which are not connected to provide this type

of ecosystem information in a timely manner.

Links between public and environmental health agen-

cies are becoming more important. The term

‘biosurveillance’ describes the monitoring of a popula-

tion for changes, against a standard or norm.

In these

post 9/11 times, biosurveillance has evolved to mean

monitoring ecosystems and public health communities

for changes that could indicate the presence of a silent

biological or chemical agent release from a terrorist

attack.

Many emerging diseases, including West Nile

virus, affect both animals and humans. So do many