DRI receives two-grant from NOAA as part of the WARN Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 26, 2009

LAS VEGAS — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently awarded DRI a two-year grant to use four Community Environmental Monitoring Program (CEMP) stations as demonstration sites for the Remote Community Alert System of the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act. The CEMP stations are monitoring facilities of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Site Office (NNSA/NSO).

NOAA initiated the Remote Community Alert System program in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina as a means to provide near-real time information on severe weather or other life threatening events to areas of low population density and poor cell phone coverage.

“The CEMP already has a role in public safety in the unlikely event of an off-site release of radiation from the Nevada Test Site (NTS). So the Remote Community Alert System is a natural extension of its role,” said Ted Hartwell, DRI Project Director of the CEMP.

As part of the Remote Community Alert System, CEMP stations in four rural Nevada counties will display weather and other emergency information on electronic signs linked to CEMP stations. The information is sent out by the DRI Western Regional Climate Center based on weather warnings provided by agencies such as the National Weather Service.

“The Remote Community Alert System program is designed for areas with population density of less than 100 people per square mile. The four Nevada counties where CEMP stations will be used—Nye, Esmeralda, White Pine, and Lincoln—all have population densities of two people or less per square mile. These rural Nevada counties are prime candidates for this emerging service,” said David Shafer, Senior Director of DRI’s Center for Environmental Remediation and Monitoring.

DRI will install and operate the Remote Community Alert Systems with the cooperation of the National Weather Service, Emergency Management offices in Nye, Esmeralda, White Pine, and Lincoln Counties, the Duckwater Indian Reservation, and CEMP community representatives at each of the four sites. NNSA/NSO will support this activity by allowing use of the communications platform that exists at the CEMP stations to transmit messages that will be displayed on the digital signage.

CEMP is a network of 29 radiological and meteorological monitoring stations located in a three-state region surrounding the NTS. The stations continuously monitor the airborne environment to ensure that no offsite releases of radiological materials occur from current or past activities at the NTS, and give public stakeholders a hands-on role in this task. DRI manages the CEMP for NNSA/NSO. More information on the CEMP is available at www.cemp.dri.edu .