Homeland Security Research

Research Highlights

Securing Buildings Against Chemical and Biological Agents

EPA has held several half-day workshops for building professionals to explain:

• How to prepare for a terrorist attack on a building
• How to incorporate protective measures into building design and operations to minimize the impact of an attack

North Carolina A&T University plans and hosts the workshops as part of an EPA contract. The workshops target facilities engineers, building owners/managers, consulting engineers, physical plant directors, local government officials, first responders, industrial hygienists, and health and hospital officials.

These workshops focus on the importance of knowing how to detect and minimize the impact of a chemical or biological agent (CBA) attack in a specific building. CBAs are easy for terrorists to use in an attack because only a small amount of material is needed to incapacitate, seriously injure, or kill building occupants. CBAs can be easily deposited within the building itself or at an air intake, window, or door. Buildings of any size may be targets for a terrorist attack. Large, high-profile buildings have a higher risk of being potential targets, but small and mid-sized buildings are also at risk.

Workshop Information Videotaped

One of the workshops was videotaped and five hours of viewable information is available on:

• Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems as protection against CBA attacks
• Filtration and air cleaning systems as protection against CBA attacks
• Legal issues
• Knowing your building
• Risk management

The following are some tips from the videotape:

• Building professionals need to assess the vulnerability of a specific building to an attack. This assessment is included in a written Risk Management Plan that the building owner must commit to implementing. The plan must clearly identify roles, responsibilities, key actions, and time tables during a response to an attack; and must be communicated in advance to all responsible for implementing the plan in an emergency.
• Design engineers have a responsibility to inform building owners of a building’s vulnerability to a CBA attack, as well as measures that can be taken to mitigate such an attack. The courts have identified a “totality of circumstances test” to determine the liability of a building owner or design professional involved in the construction of a building that is later the subject of litigation.
• Once a CBA is detected, building managers must know enough about their building’s air handling systems (including the exhaust system) to quickly bring the building into a safe configuration of air flow and to decide whether to safely shelter building occupants in place or evacuate them.
• Air filtration is an under-utilized asset, a proven technology that can be easily adapted to develop an effective response to a CBA attack on a building. The simplest starting point is to seal cracks in the system that can result in up to 50% of uncaptured air. A wide range of protection options are available and there are ways to recalculate the lifecycle costs to make these options more attractive to building owners.

See Also
Securing Buildings Against Chemical and Biological Agents Video