Host towns plan for emergencies post-fort
Tarantolo: Cost of losing fort emergency response is $10M
BY LIZ SHEEHAN Correspondent
As the time grows closer to the Army's announced closing of Fort Monmouth in 2011, and plans for how the land and buildings on site are being worked on, attention is being given to the gap that will be left in the area when the emergency services at the fort will no longer be available to local communities.

Mayor Gerald Tarantolo of Eatontown, who is a member of the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Planning Authority (FMERPA), the group that is charged with drawing up a redevelopment plan for the fort, said Monday that a FMERPA committee he heads will ask the state Department of Community Services for a grant to determine how the local towns would handle emergency response when they can no longer call on help from the fort.

He said that it was estimated that the cost to the towns surrounding Fort Monmouth to replace these services and equipment now available through the fort was $10 million, which is "far beyond our means."

The grant, Tarantolo said, would be used "to explore what options are available."

He said that most of the area municipalities had mutual aid agreements whereby they "all support each other," when necessary in emergencies.

Fort Monmouth, he said, provides help in hazmat situations, such as special uniforms needed and portable showers and fire equipment "well beyond what municipalities can afford."

The fort also sets up command centers in emergencies that coordinate all the aspects of recovery and bring in other required resources, Tarantolo said.

The committee that is looking into how to deal with the loss of the fort's services, he said, now comprises fire chiefs and police chiefs of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, representatives from the county's Office of Emergency Management and Prosecutor's Office, and a representative from the state's firefighters union.

The next meeting of the committee will be at the Eatontown Municipal Building at 3 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 28, Tarontolo said. It is open to the public.