LOCAL

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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Hermiston eyes emergency services expansion

By BROOK GRIFFIN of the East Oregonian
bgriffin@eastoregonian.com


HERMISTON — The Hermiston Fire and Emergency Services District is having growing pains.

Fire Chief Jim Stearns said expanding the district’s main building in Hermiston, which it shares with the police department, is a project that’s long overdue.

“For the last 10 years or so we have been pretty cramped,” Stearns said.

Expansion plans are still “very preliminary,” Stearns said, noting the district doesn’t have even a rough estimate of the cost.

But the need is clear, in part because the fire station doesn’t have separate facilities for female firefighters. A common room upstairs serves as office space and living quarters for all of the fire and emergency personal on a shift.

Stearns said there is not a separate female restroom, but rather a unisex bathroom on the second floor. If female firefighters want to use a women’s restroom they must go to the other side of the safety center to the police department.

There fire district has two volunteer female firefighters and one female secretary.

In addition, sleeping quarters in the dorm area upstairs are at capacity. Six people use the sleeping area on a standard shift.

The building is leased to the fire district and other agencies by the city of Hermiston. Hermiston City Manager Ed Brookshier said the city supports the expansion but that funding is the fire district’s responsibility.

The fire district hopes to have a conceptual plan for expanding the building by mid-March, Stearns said.

The expansion effort likely will be combined with a CSEPP building project to add an emergency operations station at the safety center that could be used in the event of an emergency at the Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot.

The CSEPP command center is expected to cost about $400,000. It would be pressurized to protect it from a chemical leak.