Wellesley’s Local Emergency Planning Committee has been working to ensure the safety of residents in the event of a biological terrorist attack, but its members say there is still work to be done.
    Selectmen on Monday received an update on the committee’s progress from Committee members Fire Chief Kevin Rooney, Health Department director Janice Trainor-Tellier and Board of Health chairman Shep Cohen. 
    Trainor-Tellier said she fears that in the event of an attack communication and coordination between the local departments would be difficult because the state has designated different regions for the Wellesley’s Health Department, which is considered as the Boston area, and the Fire Department’s, which has been designated as MetroWest, “That’s been a little bit of an obstacle,” she said. “The regions were supposed to serve as a conduit for finance to come to us on a local level, but unfortunately the money has gotten stuck at the state level and there hasn’t been a lot of money coming down to the regional level.” 
    Trainor-Tellier assured the selectmen that the state level has been more active than on the local level, and the Massachusetts Health Department has sett up working groups dealing with communications, technology and surveillance, needs assessment with the national pharmaceutical stockpile, and information planning.
    Cohen said without more money coming down, it’s difficult to make progress.
    “In order to have a public health response, you need to have an infrastructure, which is essentially the workforce, which involves training, communications, as well as basic organization,” he said. “While we have made a lot of progress (on the local level) we do not have the public health infrastructure to mount a fully adequate response, and what we are doing is moving to improve that by developing training programs, organization and realization.”    

    He mentioned how fire, police, and Emergency Medical Services workers have a good infrastructure from years of training. “But the public health structure has not been there in terms of the type of responses we may now be asked to handle. I’m suggesting that we have a ways to go, and unfortunately we’re in an environment where the demands are increasing, our time, and knowledge and our funding is not necessarily keeping ahead with that, and allowing us to do what we need to do. It’s a challenging time.” 
    Cohen reiterated Trainor-Tellier’s point that things are in better shape at the state-level, but Chief Rooney pointed out that organization on the local level would be better for the communication and coordination between town departments. 
    “In an event that would involve more than one community or a large area, assistance from state resources may be delayed therefore it is important to prepare ourselves to handle ourselves locally and not be dependent on immediate outside assistance,” Rooney said.