Gazette - 9/11 on the farm

COVER - REMOTE AND NORTHERN POLICING

Responding to an agroterrorism incident

A major agroterrorism incident could be more complex than the response to 9/11, says Jason B. Moats, author of the book Agroterrorism : a guide for first responders (Texas A&M University Press, 2007). Moats talks with Gazette writer Caroline Ross about the potential for biological disease agents to shatter the American livestock industry, and explains why emergency responders must keep an open mind.

Why would an agroterrorism attack involving livestock surpass 9/11 in terms of response?

(With 9/11), we could see where the dust stopped, but you can’t do that with footand- mouth disease, mad cow disease or (other biological agents) that can travel in the air for hundreds of miles. Illness in animals is also an observed behaviour; by the time a cow or pig starts to show symptoms, it’s typically well into the disease. Diseases can spread tremendously fast, and the agriculture industry is so interconnected that if one piece starts to fail, other pieces are affected. For example, footand- mouth disease affects sheep, cattle, goats, swine — all of which we like to eat. Livestock is economically the largest sector in (American) agriculture.

What role will law enforcement play in an agroterrorism incident?

Because this is a biological incident at heart, the people in charge (of the response effort) will be largely veterinarians and animal health professionals. Law enforcement officers may be asked to help trace back the disease, and they will certainly be involved if there is a criminal or terrorist element. They will also be involved in perimeter security and (monitoring) checkpoints for animal (traffic).

What are the challenges in perimeter security?

A lot of it comes down to communication and knowing where your authority starts and stops. Let’s say we send a New York City police officer to central Kansas to help monitor traffic during an incident. His job is to pull over vehicles carrying alpaca, because alpaca is a susceptible species to the disease at hand. Well, how do you train a law enforcement officer what an alpaca is? And what is his authority (with regards to the animals he stops)? In the U.S., a city law enforcement officer may not have the authority to put an animal down. He may have to wait for the game warden to show up.

Wow can police forces address these challenges?

Part of it requires planning — a lot of planning and exercising different scenarios. The short answer is to develop an indoctrination program so officers arriving at the scene get a day of training, or to provide job guides for officers to flip through in the midst of a crisis. But the point remains that this will be a shared response. It’s going to require co-operation between law enforcement, emergency management and the rest of the public safety community, working hand in hand with the agricultural community, from veterinarians to research institutions. We need to be asking these questions now, together, instead of when disease hits.

How would you rate the current state of readiness for an agroterrorism incident in North America?

It’s better than what it was, but there’s still a long way to go. Disease detection technologies have improved a lot since 2000, but the focus has been on human health. And we haven’t done many agricultural exercises (within the emergency response community).We haven’t paid enough attention to animal health.

What is the emergency response community’s biggest misconception regarding agricultural incidents?

It’s when they stand up and say, “Dealing with cows and pigs? That’s not my responsibility!” Yes, it is. These incidents start and end at the local level, and everybody owns part of the response. I guarantee that national and state bodies are working to solve this, but the answer really begins with the conversation at the local level, because what is done in the first hours of an incident will have a huge effect on how the incident ends.