STANDISH – Rescue personnel from several local communities spent last Saturday morning simulating a chemical spill at the Sebago Lake Water Treatment Facility.

The full-scale emergency exercise took eight months to plan and was designed as training should an actual chemical spill take place at the Portland Water District facility, which filters and purifies water from Sebago Lake and pumps it out to 190,000 customers in Greater Portland.

Saturday’s event was good practice for emergency responders should an actual emergency occur at the treatment plant. The Presumpscot Valley HAZMAT Team, made up of specially trained personnel from Windham, Westbrook, Standish, Gorham and Scarborough fire departments, treated Saturday’s simulation as if it were the real thing.

While the response was a joint planning venture between the Portland Water District and local authorities, once the mock chemical spill occurred, the HAZMAT team took over.

“In a situation like this, we’ve basically held up our hands and said we can’t handle this and turn over the operation,” said Joel Anderson, chief operator at the facility who was on hand Saturday as an evaluator.

The exercise featured four “major incidents,” said Portland Water District Security Officer Rod Beaulieu, one of the planners of the event. Responding personnel first had to find and identify the hazardous material leak inside the treatment facility. After discovering the ammonia, the next task was to rescue any victims. Third, the HAZMAT team stopped the leak and collected any remaining hazardous material. Lastly, the plant was shut down remotely, from Portland Water District’s Douglas Street facility in Portland.

“The remote shut-off went smoothly,” said Michelle Clements, spokesperson for the Portland Water District.

To add to the drama and realism of the event, two volunteers played victims of the ammonia leak. True to its billing as a full-scale exercise, HAZMAT team members decontaminated the victims by removing their clothes, hosed the mock victims off in a decontamination tent and then transported them by ambulance off the property.

“I was lying in a puddle. I was unresponsive, and I wasn’t supposed to move,” said volunteer Mike Blanck of Steep Falls. “It was interesting to see it from the other side. All I could see were people looking down at me.”

The exercise, which was funded by a federal Homeland Security grant, was considered a success by organizers.

“The whole idea was to identify what works well and what needs improvement. So far we’ve identified a little of both,” Beaulieu said.

Presumpscot Valley HAZMAT Team leader John True, Portland Water District director Ron Miller, and Rob Lindstedt, a professor of hazardous materials at Southern Maine Community College, discuss unfolding events of a mock chemical spill at the district’s treatment facility in Standish on Saturday. The simulation, which was funded by a federal homeland security grant, gave rescue personnel practical experience in containing a chemical leak at the Sebago Lake Water Treatment Facility, which provides drinking water for thousands of Greater Portland residents. (Staff photo by John Balentine)