Federal cutbacks threaten Maine emergency response capability

AUGUSTA – A task force of legislators and private sector professionals assembled to evaluate the state’s emergency preparedness were told Monday that while Maine has made great improvements to its critical response capability, the network remains threatened by federal cutbacks in the national homeland security program.

“What would happen if we had a Hurricane Katrina or some mass casualty or a huge level of disaster?” asked Dr. Peter Wilks in his presentation to the panel. “I think what we’ve heard so far is that we’re not adequately prepared for that. I believe it is increasingly clear that the national government has been squandering scarce resources and heading off in a totally wrong direction when it comes to the greatest threats to our homeland security.”

Wilks, a co-president of the Maine Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, was one of several appearing before the task force to echo the need for more federal resources to respond to emergency events whether they stem from terrorist activities or natural catastrophes.

Art Cleaves, director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said Maine can face a crisis better than other states because of the close relationships that exist among state, county, municipal and federal first-responders. Those bonds have been invaluable, he said, when trying to work around communications problems that arise because of either systems or geographical obstacles posed to the network.

“We’re all on a first-name basis,” he said.

Cleaves said Monday’s forum drew attention to the need for local, regional and statewide emergency plans. Gaps in those layers of response, he said, were widened by the lack of money formerly provided by the federal government for emergency programs.

“This year we’re being cut by one-half of the funds we formerly got for homeland security,” he said. “Last year, we received $14.7 million, which was down from the previous year’s $22 million. Now, we’re at $7.1 million, and that’s very troubling for me. We need baseline funding to maintain baseline capability.”

Dr. Dora Mills, director of the state Bureau of Health, said she is not yet certain where the specific federal cutbacks will fall for her department. She said federal authorities were placing an emphasis on urban areas for federal funding which does not translate well in a rural state such as Maine.

“A public health emergency by definition doesn’t know any borders,” she said. “So if there’s somebody with smallpox in New York City, we’ll have smallpox here in Maine as well. It will be a lot cheaper per capita to actually prepare 1.3 million [vaccines] within a 25-mile radius than within a radius that runs from Kittery to Fort Kent. So these funds are being redirected to what we expect will be a large degree, and it’s only further compounding the already existing cuts.”

Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, sponsored the legislation that created the Homeland Security Needs Task Force which is reviewing Maine’s homeland security needs in areas such as law enforcement, emergency preparedness, public health, port and airport security, and sensitive-target security.

In addition to Monday’s meeting, the task force plans to hold regional hearings to gather comments from across Maine as it analyzes the state of homeland security preparedness and spending priorities. The study also will examine the impact of the Maine National Guard and Reserve deployments abroad on the state’s emergency preparedness.