CBR Advisor Description

U.S. EPA's CBR Advisor

The United States and other nations have spent billions of dollars on plans and protocols in defense of acts of terrorism that could involve Chemical, Biological, and Radiological agents. However, few have recognized a glaring weak link because of its highly technical nature. The weak link is the technical resources it takes to identify what the terrorism agent is.

It is obvious that completely different sampling and analytical methods and instrumentation are required to determine whether an agent is chemical, biological, or radiological in nature. It may be less obvious that, within each of these categories there are many many specific chemicals and biological organisms that could be used and that they too fall into multiple sub-categories all of which use different methods and instruments. Clearly, upon reflection, it is not trivial to determine the identity of an agent of a terrorist attack - in fact, it can be a major undertaking if, as would be expected, little or no information about the terrorism agent is available. And, until the identity of a terrorism agent is known, how effectively can all the plans and protocols that have been developed be implemented?

One of the most important parts of the CBR Advisor is advice on how to logically proceed stepwise to determine the identity of a terrorism agent when little or no information is available, which is typical at the beginning of a terrorism incident.

U.S. EPA recognized this weak link and has developed an anti-terrorism expert knowledge system for defense against intentional or accidental contamination of water supply systems and Instant Reference Sources, Inc. developed the software. The expert knowledge system covers Chemical, Biological, and Radiological agents and is named the CBR Advisor.

Dr. Lawrence H. Keith worked very closely with U.S. EPA scientists and others from an extensive team and incorporated the knowledge, experience, and expertise of the team and himself, plus information in publicly available EPA documents, to develop the CBR Advisor expert knowledge system. The CBR Advisor uses the same framework that Dr. Keith developed under a 2001 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the world's first environmental monitoring expert system (the Environmental Monitoring and Measurement Advisor - EMMA). This framework incorporates a dual screen presentation and 3 "planes" or "levels" of information: (1) a top/executive level with brief answers, (2) an educational level with in-depth information, and (3) a research level with links to other documents, slide shows, forms, and Internet sites.

The CBR Advisor can be used for incident response and/or training. It has two different menus, one for emergency response and another longer menu for training. Other advantages are that it is available 24/7 and may be accessed either from the Internet or CD-ROM (it could even be adapted for access using small personal digital devices). It requires no installation and is instantly available when the starting file is clicked on. The CBR Advisor is a restricted software program and is not publicly available. It contains both publicly available information and also restricted lists of potential CBR agents and analytical methods for them.

Publicly available content includes:

How to classify threat warnings,
How to conduct initial threat evaluation,
Immediate response actions,
How to perform site characterization,
Initial site evaluation and safe entry,
Where and how to best collect samples, and
How to package and ship samples for analysis.

Restricted content includes CBR agents and methods for analyzing them.

Information in the software can easily be modified; for example, to be customized to fit another client's requirements and objectives. Thus, other countries and/or organizations can leverage the time and experience used to develop the CBR Advisor. Rather than "re-inventing the wheel," they can use their resources wisely to customize software to meet their specific needs and also save time and money. The content of the CBR Advisor is limited by design for use with drinking water sources. Obviously, more comprehensive uses may desire expansion to cover terrorism incidents that could involve air and dust/soil dispersion. In addition, different countries and/or organizations all have their own priorities and analytical methods with respect to lists of CBR agents.

(including conversion of the information into its own language)

For more information please send an e-mail to info@instantref.com or call us at 1-770-267-7758.

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