AZ Civil Support Team, Prescott Area HAZMAT Response Team preserve medical history

Photo By 1st Lt. Wes Parrell | A member of the 91st Civil Support Team and the Prescott Area Hazardous Materials Response Team moves chemicals found in medicinal bottles to containers for disposal during joint training between the teams August 30 at Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Ariz. The museum enlisted the help of the team to identify and dispose of potentially hazardous materials found in their collection. (Arizona National Guard photo by Sgt. Wesley Parrell)  

PRESCOTT, AZ, UNITED STATES

08.30.2016

Story by Sgt. 1st Class Robert Freese 

Arizona National Guard Public Affairs

PRESCOTT, Ariz. – Members of the Arizona National Guard’s 91st Civil Support Team conducted a special joint training here August 30 – 31, with the Prescott Area Hazardous Materials Response Team that provided a real world service, preserving part of Arizona’s history.
During a recent census of the Sharlot Hall Museum’s collection, they discovered potentially hazardous materials in the medical collection that could put the collection or even the curators at risk. According to Mick Woodcock, the museum’s chief curator, some of these materials date back as far as the early 1890s, just a few short years after the territorial capital was moved from Prescott to Phoenix.
“The support from the fire department and the CST greatly helps preserve the local historical importance of early medical treatments here in Prescott,” Woodcock said.
One of the collections in the museum belonged to Dr. Florence Yount, a reputable Prescott pediatric and obstetrics physician from the late 1930s until her retirement in 1973. Yount was inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990 for her professional, political and personal contributions to the Prescott area.
Another significant collection comes from the Owl Drugstore, an important community meeting place in the early 1900s.
When the collections were discovered, the museum reached out to Conrad Jackson, a firefighter with the Prescott Fire Department for help with identifying and helping to dispose of the materials.
“We started evaluating their inventory and seeing some items in there labeled on the inventory as something that you and I might consider hazardous at this point,” Jackson said. “It wasn’t [considered hazardous] 40 or 50 years ago, but there’s things we deem carcinogenic that wasn’t at the time.”
After the initial evaluation, museum curators took him and local HAZMAT specialist Steve Maslansky into the basement to look at some of the items, and Jackson saw an opportunity to help the museum out.
“They’ve got some stuff that’s clearly labeled, sulfuric acid for example. Obviously you don’t want any of your employees coming in contact with that. It’s a hazard,” he said. “But the bottle that it’s in still retains historical significance.”
Once or twice a year the CST trains with the Prescott Area HAZMAT Response Team, and since the vast number of samples in the Sharlot Hall inventory was overwhelming to the small team, and the CST has higher-level qualitative analysis devices, they asked the CST if they would help identify the chemicals.
“We train a lot with Prescott,” said Lt. Col. Scott Hier, commander, 91st CST. “Missions like this, helping the community preserve our history is no less important than a mission responding to a natural or man-made disaster. The CST is designed to help local agencies like the Prescott Fire Department.”
The analyses and cleaning performed by the fire department and the CST will ensure the museum abides by EPA standards, create a safer environment for employees and volunteers of the museum and eliminate the possibility of other museum pieces being damaged by volatile chemicals.
“We’re mitigating a hazard for them and at the same time getting a training exercise for us,” Jackson said.
The museum plans to safely remove any hazardous materials that the teams find during the next citywide HAZMAT disposal day.
“It’s better to have [the CST and fire department] come in, take a look and dispose of the things that are not good,” Woodcock said. “In good museum keeping nowadays, the containers should be empty of their original contents.

• Date Taken: 08.30.2016
• Date Posted: 09.06.2016 15:34
• Story ID: 208911
• Location: PRESCOTT, AZ, US