Mr. William K. Blewett

William Blewett U.S. Army

William Blewett410-436-2160

This document has been prepared jointly by the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) and the Protective Design Center (PDC) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Points of contact for comments or questions regarding this draft are Mr. William Blewett, ECBC, 410-436-2160, and Mr. Richard Heiden, PDC, 402-221-4925.

William Blewett's phone rang virtually nonstop as news of last October's anthrax attacks spread.Callers asked: How can my business or government office protect itself?Can my air-handling system be safeguarded 100 percent?More than half a year later, Blewett still is fielding such calls from around the country.

Blewett never before experienced anything like it in his 28 years of working in the field of protecting buildings from sinister airborne agents.Helping fuel interest was an FBI advisory after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, warning the public to be alert to any unusual activities around ventilation systems.While the FBI knew of no specific threats regarding the release of toxic chemicals into air-handling systems, the agency said building owners and managers should be aware of the potential contamination of air handling systems.And judging by Blewett's workload, they're aware.

"It's incredible.There's so much interest now," says Blewett, a mechanical engineer for the nation's Homeland Defense Building Protection Program at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
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"The key is filtration," Blewett says.
...
A high-quality carbon filter, such as those typically used by the military, can remove many things, but not the tiny molecules of carbon monoxide, Blewett says.

William Blewett's phone rang virtually nonstop as news of last October's anthrax attacks spread.Callers asked: How can my business or government office protect itself?Can my air-handling system be safeguarded 100 percent?More than half a year later, Blewett still is fielding such calls from around the country.

Blewett never before experienced anything like it in his 28 years of working in the field of protecting buildings from sinister airborne agents.Helping fuel interest was an FBI advisory after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, warning the public to be alert to any unusual activities around ventilation systems.While the FBI knew of no specific threats regarding the release of toxic chemicals into air-handling systems, the agency said building owners and managers should be aware of the potential contamination of air handling systems.And judging by Blewett's workload, they're aware.

"It's incredible.There's so much interest now," says Blewett, a mechanical engineer for the nation's Homeland Defense Building Protection Program at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
...
"The key is filtration," Blewett says.
...
A high-quality carbon filter, such as those typically used by the military, can remove many things, but not the tiny molecules of carbon monoxide, Blewett says.

William K. Blewett, U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center

The author would like to expressly thank Robert Woellner, Quest International Management, Denver, Colo., and William Blewett, U.S. Army, SBCCOM, Edgewood, Md.

"We have a lot of information available that can assist any firms that would like to do this," said William Blewett, a mechanical engineer working on protection against chemical and biological agents at the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

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Measures that focus on thwarting biological and chemical attacks range from common-sensical and cheap to advanced and astronomically expensive, said Mr. Blewett of the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center.

He said, for example, that merely placing air intakes in new buildings high above the ground, in a protected area, went a long way toward protecting against one of the most feared types of attack, in which an agent is poured directly into the ventilation system.

The center's biological and chemical defense program has also outfitted about 200 buildings in the United States and overseas with elaborate ventilation and filtering systems to give nearly absolute protection against accidents or attacks.

Some of those buildings are schools, hospitals and jails near chemical depots, where accidental releases are a concern, and many are military installations that could be the target of attacks, Mr. Blewett said.Even so, he added, the users of those sophisticated systems faced some familiar problems.In some overseas military installations, he said, "they don't even do the routine maintenance, changing the dust filters."

New York Times October 30, 2001Particles Are Tiny, but Damage Can Be Great