While immediate containment and cleanup activities will be initiated during response (as discussed in KPF 4, Control the Spread of Contamination), longer-term, complex remediation strategies may be needed to eliminate or limit the harm of ongoing chemical contamination on a region’s environment, critical infrastructure, and population. Containing or eliminating the source of a chemical release can be difficult; detoxifying and remediating contaminated sites can also be challenging. In the best of cases, the chemical may have limited environmental persistence, or the source of the incident may be easily contained. In other cases, complex methods of “treating” (remediating/decontaminating) the environment and contaminated infrastructure may be required (see Appendix H). Unfortunately, some chemical releases are virtually impossible to contain or treat. For example, with the exception of an indoor space, little can be done to contain airborne releases, and “decontamination” efforts are generally restricted to awaiting chemical dilution, dispersion, settling, and decomposition. Clearly, if the contaminant or its toxic reaction products settle onto surfaces, these will later have to be decontaminated. Releases to bodies of water, especially rapidly moving waterways, are often similarly challenging to address.
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