Erie County Hazardous Materials/WMD Emergency Response Team (EC - HMRT) at an incident. The duration of the incident was from 2/14/2009 thru 2/19/2009.

From EC-HMRT:
The mission of the Erie County Hazardous Materials/WMD Response Team (EC-HMRT) is to respond to any Hazardous Material or Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) release to identify, contain, rescue, recover, and mitigate the incident in the interest of Public Safety and Health.

Founded in 1989, EC-HMRT is an all volunteer team of approximately 50 members and responds as a function of the Erie County Departments of Health and Emergency Services.

The team is comprised of a diverse cross-section of the community and includes Firefighters, Law Enforcement Officers, Nurses, Scientists, Emergency Medical Technicians and Hazardous Waste Specialists.

Team members who attain "Technician" level standing with our team receive training far in excess of New York State and OSHA minimum standards. Persons achieving technician level status receive an average of 400 hours of Hazmat training and must, at a minimum, achieve and demonstrate all competencies required by NFPA 471 and 472 for Hazardous Materials Technicians. With additional training, many technicians also attain "Specialist" level ratings in areas such as:

■Railroad Tank Car Specialist
■Highway Cargo Tank Specialist
■Intermodal Container Specialist
■WMD Specialist
■Radiological Specialist
■Chemical Specialist
■Biological Specialist
■Ammonia Specialist
■Sampling and Collection Specialist
EC-HMRT is on call 24/7/365 for any incident requiring a hazmat response, dispatching via the Medical Emergency Radio Service of Erie County (MERS). The team is available to respond to incidents in all municipalities of Erie County free of charge.

Requests for response may be made by Fire, Police, EMS, Emergency Management, or other governmental agency in Erie County and will respond upon request, pursuant to existing Emergency Management Assistance Compacts anywhere in Western New York and Southern Ontario for services ranging from technical consultation to full hazmat response.

Note that "Southern Ontario" is mentioned here. The fact that EC-HMRT could potentially respond to incidents in Canada -another nation- makes this HAZMAT team very unique in terms of jurisdiction.

The team has an agreement with the Canadian government to respond to HAZMAT/CBRN incidents in the southern part of the Ontario province, this includes the city of Toronto - Canada's largest city. As Toronto is an international center and virtually the Canadian version of New York, EC-HMRT must be in a constant state of readiness to respond to any CBRN attack upon that city if called upon.

EC-HMRT does not regularly respond to incidents in Canada. It would only respond during a dire situation like that of a major industrial accident or an incident involving CBRN in Toronto. Once there, EC-HMRT would work with local and national level Canadian officials and authorities (RCMP, military, etc.) in resolving the incident.

To date, EC-HMRT has never responded to an emergency in Canada but is prepared 24/7 to do so.

EC-HMRT to my knowledge is the only HAZMAT team in the US that has bi-national jurisdiction.

However, much of the team's day to day operations are in Erie County which is a largely rural area in upstate New York.