Morning Read: Is DEC comm plan endangering lives?
New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation is trying to shift dispatching duties to a central hub in Albany, as part of on-going cost-cutting measures.
Late last week, Mike Lynch with the Adirondack Daily Enterprise published a must-read investigative piece looking at internal concerns raised by forest rangers and others that the central dispatch effort could be putting them at risk.
Lynch acquired internal emails sent by rangers. Here’s a sample:
“Based on what is being demonstrated, central dispatch has no business being the life link for the rangers in the field,” forest ranger Lt. John Solan wrote in a Feb. 1 email.
“We have enough examples of the inability of central dispatch to function effectively. We are very fortunate to not have examples of how central has fallen short in a true emergency. There are numerous examples of routine dispatch failures, but so far we have been lucky.”
Some of the specific accounts of communication breakdowns are harrowing.
Other problems that have occurred as a result of the switch to a central dispatch include a delay in a search-and-rescue for two elderly skiers at Garnett Hill Ski Lodge in Warren County. During the search, forest ranger Steve Ovitt called Albany for assistance but didn’t receive help. In response, Solan stepped in from Ray Brook to communicate with Ovitt.
Albany dispatchers have also repeatedly mistaken Adirondack place names. Records show Lake Colden being marked down as Lake Holden, the AuSable Club being called AuSable Park and Saranac Lake being referred to as Saranac, which is a separate community 30 miles away.
In one incident in April, forest ranger Pete Evans checked in with central dispatch, letting them know he was on Floodwood Road in the town of Santa Clara, checking on recreational activity in an area that is popular with paddlers and fisherman.
But Albany dispatchers recorded him being on Floodburg Road in the town of Flanders Claire (not a real place), checking for suspicious activity.
Lynch reports that DEC officials promise not to move forward with the planned reorganization until they’re confident that all the bugs are worked out.
It’s worth noting that dispatch duties are fiercely controversial with local governments as well, as Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, and Franklin County have been sorting out how to handle dispatch and 911 calls.
Tags: environment
Actually, I have long suggested to people who work for the DEC that all trail heads should have a sign that reads: “Enter at your own risk.”
Maybe what we need is hiking insurance for those who want it. This could help pay for the cost of search and rescue.
Also, you should not enter the woods with the presumption that your cell phone or a GPS will solve all your problems.
It never made sense to me why DEC law enforcement/emergency services communications system didn’t simply use the NYSP dispatch at the Zone or Troop level. Professionally trained, 24/7/365 services that have to be there anyway and are familiar with the local area. IMO DEC simply doesn’t want to relinquish any of it’s “rice bowl” to another agency. That’s the wrong way to think about it. It would be far more efficient on multiple levels to have Forest Rangers, En Con Police and SP working TOGETHER rather than as separate institutions. I’ve seen Troopers refused access to DEC equipment or even a simple snowmobile ride to an aircraft crash site in sub zero conditions and I’ve seen all 3 agencies working together very nicely. It seems to me the latter is the preferable way to do things.
This is a pretty good example of what you can happen when you try to “streamline” things and make things more “efficient”.
Smaller, more efficient, government agencies sound nice… but reality is not always what you expect.
Truth of the matter is, a lot of our government services are already running extremely thin. Continually squeezing them can produce unintended results.