Hazmat leader urges counties to expect rare but costly spills; county serves as backstop for recovery

Captain Dave Jensen, hazmat team leader who covers Black Hawk County and nine neighboring counties, told the board the regional response team formed in 1994 and that counties pay an annual cap fee that supports training and availability. Jensen recounted a May incident at the Raymond Road on‑ramp involving a leaking container of sulfuric acid that required mitigation and generated response costs.

"For us, we're looking, we're just a little over $17,000 for that call to get that mitigated," Jensen said, describing the May response as an example of the range of costs the team sometimes faces. He explained that responses vary widely in complexity and cost — from a few thousand dollars for a limited response to more than $100,000 for a large incident.

Jensen said attorneys advised in 2014 that the regional response group's intergovernmental agreement limited the group's standing to pursue cost recovery, so the agreement was revised to make the county where a spill occurred the initial billing party. "We build a county that it happened in, and then the county can go after the spiller," Jensen said, describing the 2014 change and a reaffirmation of the approach in a 2024 agreement that will guide response funding for roughly 10 years.

Board members asked about frequency and financing. Jensen said full-team callouts average about one to two per year; many smaller incidents are handled locally after recommendations from the hazmat team. He said counties sometimes maintain an emergency fund (often through EMA offices) that rolls year to year to prevent unexpected bills from creating service shortfalls.

The briefing drew attention to municipal impacts from large bills: Jensen recalled a prior event with a nearly $100,000 bill that Waterloo had to absorb temporarily; that cost forced station brownouts and strained overtime budgets until insurance and the spiller resolved liability.

Board members did not take formal action at the meeting beyond the presentation. They discussed whether to set aside a contingency fund for extraordinary hazmat response costs and noted that the current approach — the county as the initial billing party — is meant to protect first‑responder capacity while counties pursue recovery from responsible parties.