§ 33. Hazmat teams; team chiefs; creation

(a) The department of public safety is authorized to create a state hazardous materials (HAZMAT) response team. The commissioner shall appoint a HAZMAT team chief, consistent with rules adopted by the department of human resources, to carry out the duties and responsibilities of the HAZMAT response team.

(b) The HAZMAT team chief shall perform all the following duties:

(1) Organize a state HAZMAT response team to assist local emergency planning committees, fire chiefs, and other emergency management officials in response to hazardous chemical and substance (HAZMAT) incidents.

(2) Hire persons for the HAZMAT team from fire, police, and emergency organizations and persons with specialty backgrounds in hazardous materials, and, with the approval of the director of the division of fire safety, appoint crew chiefs.

(3) Negotiate with municipalities which maintain firefighting departments to secure appropriate facilities and personnel to house and maintain the response team's vehicles and equipment and to provide drivers for the response vehicles.

(4) Coordinate the acquisition and maintenance of adequate vehicles and equipment for the response teams.

(5) Ensure that response team personnel are organized, trained and exercised in accordance with the standards set by the fire service training council and the state emergency response commission.

(6) Ensure that appropriate regional mutual aid agreements are created so that all firefighting departments within the region may participate with the regional HAZMAT response team.

(c) The state shall reimburse a municipality for the actual costs expended to cover the duties of a municipality's employee who is an employee of the state HAZMAT team and who is requested to leave his or her employment at the municipality to respond to a HAZMAT incident or attend HAZMAT team training.

(d) The department of public safety may employ as many state HAZMAT team responders as the commissioner deems necessary as temporary state employees, who shall be compensated as such when authorized to respond to a HAZMAT incident or to attend HAZMAT training. State HAZMAT team responders, whenever acting as state agents in accordance with this section, shall be afforded all of the protections and immunities of state employees.

(e) The team chief and the crew chiefs, referred to in subdivision (b)(2) of this section, shall have the authority to accept the transfer of control of a hazardous material incident from the chief engineer or senior fire officer at a scene. (Added 1993, No. 194 (Adj. Sess.), § 5, eff. June 14, 1994; amended 1995, No. 115 (Adj. Sess.), §§ 2-4, eff. April 23, 1996; 1999, No. 148 (Adj. Sess.), § 78, eff. May 24, 2000; 2005, No. 209 (Adj. Sess.), § 25.)