Metro News Release

For immediate release: July 24, 2003

Metro officials ready to decontaminate vehicles for biological threats

Metro officials are prepared to rapidly and safely respond to biological threats in its bus and rail car fleet should a threat be realized in the Washington Metropolitan region. Viruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), smallpox, influenza, TB, and similar biological threats can be minimized through its newly devised Vehicle Decontamination Program. Officials from Metro’s Offices of System Safety and Risk Protection and Environmental Services briefed members of Metro’s Safety Committee earlier today about its new decontamination program" the first in the nation in the transit industry. " We sought and found a safe and effective method of decontaminating buses and rail cars should something like SARS become a threat in the Washington metropolitan area as it did in Toronto," said Fred Goodine, Metro’s Assistant General Manager for System Safety and Risk Protection. Metro has on-hand more than 1,000 gallons of hospital grade cleaner/disinfectant at its bus garages and rail yards ready for immediate use. The product, EcoTru, developed by EnviroSystems, Inc., is proven nontoxic and noncorrosive, making it safe for Metro employees, customers, the environment, and vehicle materials and equipment. It contains the active ingredient that the World Health Organization recommends for killing SARS. It has been proven effective against other serious biological illnesses as well. Once the EcoTru is applied, it takes only minutes to disinfect the vehicle interiors. " We are the only transit authority in the world that has taken this military technology and converted it to a civilian application," said Joan LeLacheur, Metro’s Manager of Environmental Services. " It speaks to our ability to adapt for the transit environment." " This is the first example of a major transit authority improving on our ability to recover from biological exposure and to mitigate for such exposure," Mr. Goodine explained. " We hope it helps assure our customers that we are taking a proactive and practical approach to minimize their exposure and risk. In less than five minutes, we can decontaminate a rail car, and it would take even less time to decontaminate a bus." The decontamination agent would be applied using three-foot-tall stainless steel mobile spraying units that use an electrostatically charged decontamination system to spray the agent. The charged particles repel each other yet are attracted to vehicle surfaces in seconds, completely and uniformly. The system was developed for military applications by Foster-Miller, Inc., of Massachusetts. Metro officials who tested the device this spring have invested approximately $125,000 on the biological decontamination program and have enough decontamination units to treat Metro’s full fleet of approximately 900 rail cars and 1,400 buses.

News release issued on July 24, 2003.