Decontamination Options for Restoring Subway Systems following a Bacillus anthracis Contamination Incident
Citation:
Oudejans, L. AND K. McConkey. Decontamination Options for Restoring Subway Systems following a Bacillus anthracis Contamination Incident. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/S-18/286, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Following a biological incident in a subway system, effective remediation of railcars, subway tunnels and stations would require the use of various approaches to characterize, clean-up, and clear the contaminated area for reentry and reuse. This work reviews the bench-, pilot-, and field-scale decontamination research that was conducted under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Underground Transport Restoration (UTR) project. It describes various decontamination technologies that could be considered and summarizes the findings that are most applicable for operational use in decontamination methods for railcar and related material and decontamination methods for subway tunnels and stations. The results of this endeavor will inform the EPA response community as well as other responders in major US cities that hold a subway system on the means to decontaminate, and clear for re-use of underground transportation environments.
Description:
This technical brief reviews the bench-, pilot-, and field-scale decontamination research conducted by EPA under the Underground Transport Restoration (UTR) project. This summarizes the findings most applicable for operational use in decontamination methods for railcar and related materials and decontamination methods for subway tunnels and stations.