The fatal collision Sunday between two medical helicopters in Arizona was the sixth crash involving the emergency helicopters since May, making the last two months one of the deadliest periods in the history of the fast-growing industry.Sixteen people have died this year in seven crashes, which involved eight helicopters, according to federal data. Thirteen of the deaths have come since May.

About 750 medical helicopters are operating in this country, about twice the number flying a decade ago. Medical helicopters were once operated mostly by hospitals, but in recent years private companies, including some that are publicly traded, have come to dominate the industry.

The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Mark Rosenker, said the agency was greatly concerned about the spate of crashes. The board began to investigate the industry after a rash of accidents in 2004 and 2005.

In a report in 2006, it found that operators had failed to develop comprehensive flight risk programs, and that pilots often did not have adequate information about bad weather they might have encountered or equipment to alert them to dangerous terrain.

The board called for stricter flight rules and improved accident-avoidance equipment, among other recommendations.

The Federal Aviation Administration accepted all of the board’s recommendations, Mr. Rosenker said, but has put only some of them into effect.

“The latest spate of accidents has given the board concern that the F.A.A. may not be moving as quickly as necessary,” Mr. Rosenker said in a telephone interview on Monday evening.

Medical Helicopter Crashes Stir Concern

And links to Mr. Dougherty’s pieces:Crashes of Medical Aircraft Examined , and 6 Killed and 3 Are Injured as Copters Collide. The Times doesn’t hyperlink Mr. Dougherty’s byline; perhaps this is the equivalent of being a “made man” in certain organizations with which we’re familiar.

]]> http://popularlogistics.com/2008/07/05/safety-of-medical-helicopters-nyt-coverage/feed/ http://popularlogistics.com/2008/07/05/irans-surprising-non-punitive-addiction-treatment-strategy/ http://popularlogistics.com/2008/07/05/irans-surprising-non-punitive-addiction-treatment-strategy/#comments Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:21:52 +0000 Jon http://popularlogistics.com/2008/07/05/irans-surprising-non-punitive-addiction-treatment-strategy/ In a country so harsh about other matters of personal autonomy (sex, in particular) I found it surprising that Iran would have a progressive syringe exchange policy and and a fairly gentle drug regime. From Nazila Fathi’s June 27th piece in the Times, "Iran Fights Scourge of Addiction in Plain View, Stressing Treatment:"

More than a million Iranians are addicted to some form of opium, heroin or other opium derivative, according to the government, and some estimates run as high as 10 million.

In a country where the discussion of some social and cultural issues, like homosexuality, can be all but taboo, drug addiction has been widely acknowledged as a serious problem. It is talked about openly in schools and on television. Posters have encouraged people to think of addiction as a disease and to seek treatment.

Iran’s theocratic government has encouraged and financed a vast expansion in the number of drug treatment centers to help users confront their addictions and to combat the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, through shared needles.

The center in central Tehran, which is called Congress 60 and is run by a private nonprofit agency, is one of 600 centers that provide drug treatment across the country with help from government money. An additional 1,250 centers offer methadone, free needles and other services for addicts who are not ready to quit, including food and treatment for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted infections.

Iran’s government, trying to curb addiction’s huge social costs, has been more supportive of drug treatment than any other government in the Islamic world, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

It was not always this way. After the 1979 revolution, the government tried a more traditional approach: arresting drug users and putting them in jail.

But two decades later, it recognized that this approach had failed. A sharp increase in the crime rate and the number of people infected with H.I.V., both directly linked to a surge in narcotics use, persuaded the government to shift strategies.

"We have realized that an addict is a social reality," said Muhammad-Reza Jahani, the vice president for the Committee Combating Drugs, which coordinates the government’s efforts to fight drug addiction and trafficking. "We don’t want to fight addicts; we want to fight addiction. We need to manage addiction."

Apart from the observation that this is yet another piece of evidence that non-punitive approaches are more effective than "war on drugs" - it also suggest that the Iranian government is capable of changing course, rethinking problems - and thus perhaps - under the right circumstances - able to negotiate.

Tags: drug policy, harm reduction, heroin, Iran, HIV, syringe exchange

From Farmer’s piece dated June 27th:

Bob Rommeney steered his flatbed truck into a scrap-metal recycling plant in Brooklyn and unloaded two battered cars that had been wrecked days earlier at Riverhead Raceway on Long Island.

Within hours, the discarded vehicles would have their wheels removed, their fluids drained and their bodies crushed into 3-by-4-foot squares. Mr. Rommeney, 54, a retired city sanitation worker, would return home to Maspeth, Queens, about $400 richer.

“It’s worth it to come here and scrap the cars,” he said the other day, waiting his turn in the yard to drive his flatbed onto a large scale. There, workers compared its weight with what it weighed when it arrived at the yard, which is owned by A.R.C. Metal Recycling, to determine how much he should be paid. “Three years ago, I would have gotten about $50 a car,” Mr. Rommeney said. “The money went up.”

It is a very good time for anyone involved in the scrap-metal business. People who collect scrap metal and take it to recycling facilities are getting higher rates for their deliveries.

In turn, metal-recycling companies are selling more scrap metal, particularly to customers in China, India and other developing nations, who are paying record prices. A.R.C. Metal Recycling has recently been selling its scrap steel for close to $500 a ton, more than double the price it received a year ago.

“It’s booming, and it’s still growing,” said Michael Allocco, 24, the general manager of the A.R.C. recycling plant, one of 68 scrap metal processing firms licensed by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. The number of these businesses has grown nearly 20 percent in three years.

But the increase in the price of scrap metal has led to a rise in the theft of metal products, particularly anything made of copper. Mr. Allocco said he is vigilant about trying to ensure that none of the metal that is brought to his plant was stolen.

“I don’t accept the shopping-cart guys,” he said, adding that the police had visited the plant with photographs of people suspected of stealing metal, asking if anyone had seen them.

Mr. Allocco takes precautions like photographing his customers and keeping their driver’s licenses on file. “I try to keep the place on the up and up.”

Mr. Allocco’s plant is located in an industrial part of the Greenpoint neighborhood, alongside Newtown Creek and across the street from a new sewage treatment plant, whose bulbous towers add to a surreal landscape. Allocco Recycling, a transfer station for dirt, concrete and other types of fill, was founded by Mr. Allocco’s father on the two-and-a-half-acre site 20 years ago.

A.R.C., which is open 24 hours, buys hundreds of tons of ferrous metal a day. A large portion of it is steel.

At the plant, some of the oversize metal is fed to a huge hydraulic shearer resembling a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its mighty jaws rear up and rip bulky metal items to pieces.

The arm of a heavy-duty material handler also routinely sweeps across the yard. Its enormous clawlike grapples release squirming loads of twisted metal onto a pile that rises 40 feet while awaiting compacting.

The company also buys thousands of pounds of nonferrous metal daily, which is placed in a warehouse, where a mound of brass car radiators sits alongside a collection of sinks, stacks of aluminum window frames and buckets of copper wiring.

“Nonferrous is worth more,” said Bill Monteleone, A.R.C.’s director of sales. He explained how customers are paid based on the type of metal they sell and whether they have separated the metals.

“The more you fine-tune it, the more you separate, the more money you get,” said Kevin Westhall, 39, who runs a small business removing items from the homes of people who have died. He strips the insulation from old copper wiring and he pries the nonferrous metal out of washing machines.

Separating the metal is hard work, said Mr. Westhall, who makes as many as five trips a day to the recycling yard. “I walk around like a magnet,” he said. “Metal is always on my mind.”

Tags: recycling

A dedicated team at Kirkwood Community College has taken in hundreds of pets rescued from the record flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Iowa Equestrian Center on the college campus has been transformed into an emergency animal shelter to assist the Cedar Rapids city facility overwhelmed by the flooding situations of mid-June 2008.

Along with the hundreds of cats and dogs in the Kirkwood flood shelter you will see geckos, a green lizard, an iguana, a rabbit, a macaw, birds of all sizes and a cage full of rats.

There are some local “celebrities,” too: The dog rescued from a roof by firefighters, Sam the cat featured in the local newspaper. Others have stories that may never be told until and unless they are reunited with their human companions.

As the more than 370 animals arrived, they were evaluated by one of three teams consisting of a veterinarian, a vet technician and vet assistant. Kirkwood Animal Health Professor Anne Duffy estimates 85 percent have owners. The others have been separated from their families, were from the animal shelter or simply strays.

Some animals arrived with their families who lost everything and were heading for one of the local shelters set up in school gymnasiums and churches. After losing everything they owned in the floods, it was difficult to leave their pets.

Kirkwood also has a Community Training and Response Program, and its affiliations include AgTerror, a program whose purpose is to make agricultural targets less attractive to attackers, and more resilient in case of attack. Pretty cool for a community college.

After a seven-month investigation, the Public Service Commission is recommending that the utility ask firefighters to remain until safe conditions are restored, improve the way information about gas leaks is shared and set parameters for ordering evacuations.

The Fire Department and Con Edison were criticized for how they handled the deadly explosion, at a house in Sunnyside, on Nov. 21. The Fire Department said it did nothing wrong when it left after checking a report of a gas odor because Con Edison officials had taken control of the situation. The utility said it acted appropriately because it did not have information suggesting that any of the people in the houses in the area were in danger.

A 69-year-old woman, Kunta Oza, who lived at 48-19 41st Street, died a day after being burned in the explosion.

Con Edison, which said it followed its established procedures for dealing with gas leaks on the day of the explosion, has since improved its protocols, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

“We’ve worked closely with the Fire Department with respect to improving procedures for responding to gas complaints, maintaining emergency personnel presence on site and coordinating evacuations when necessary,” said the spokesman, Michael Clendenin.

Con Edison has already implemented some of the “actions to improve safety” that were recommended by the Public Service Commission. On Wednesday, staff investigators discussed their findings from the explosion at a commission meeting in Albany. The investigation is complete, but the report has not yet been released.

But Kenneth P. Thompson, a lawyer who is representing Mrs. Oza’s family in a civil suit against Con Edison, said the investigators’ findings showed that “Con Ed was negligent and caused Mrs. Oza’s death.” The report, he said, includes details about rusted gas pipes.

“Con Ed had a duty to fix that pipe, and that it wasn’t on their priority list shows they were negligent,” Mr. Thompson said. Mrs. Oza’s family is seeking $100 million in damages from Con Edison.

Officials for Con Edison said the utility did not comment on pending lawsuits.

Councilman Eric N. Gioia, who represents Sunnyside, said the commission had ignored the destruction caused by the explosion and should penalize Con Edison. (The commission did not assess penalties as part of the investigation.)

“The Public Service Commission continues to confirm our worst fears that they are little more than a public shield for Con Ed’s behavior instead of being the watchdog they need to be,” Mr. Gioia said. “Whether it’s getting electrocuted, steam pipe explosions or this, at most, the Public Service Commission gives them a slap on the wrist.”

Con Ed Urged to Improve Its Response to Gas Leaks, June 19, 2008.

Interestingly, the Public Service Commission entitled its press release

GAS DISTRIBUTION COMPANIES IMPROVE SAFETY RECORD
-Effort Underway to Further Improve Safety Performance-

On the same day that it expanded the definition of “major” system failure so that it means a system failure for 10% or more of Con Ed’s customers a maximum fine of $10 million, and a maximum of three incidents per year. “PSC Redefines Major Outages for Con Edison.” Have three major incidents - and the fourth, fifth and sixth - and every later one - are on the house. - Con Ed admits to having 3.176 million customers (See Con Ed Fact Sheet here) - so the message here is - try to keep the system failures to 300,000 customers or less - but if things get very bad - you’ll never have to pay more than $30 million in fines.

This doesn’t seem like a particularly effective deterrent.

See also:

Queens Crap Blog coverage of Con Edison issue(s)

New York Sun coverage of Con Ed

]]> http://popularlogistics.com/2008/07/04/con-ed-urged-to-improve-its-response-to-gas-leaks/feed/ http://popularlogistics.com/2008/07/02/inhabitat_ahead-of-the-curve/ http://popularlogistics.com/2008/07/02/inhabitat_ahead-of-the-curve/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:30:32 +0000 Jon http://popularlogistics.com/?p=744