To: Board of Supervisors
From: Monica Nino, County Administrator
Report Title: CONSIDER providing direction to staff on the transfer of the Hazardous Materials Program from Contra Costa County Health Services to Contra Costa Fire Protection District
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☐ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
CONSIDER providing direction to staff on the transfer of the Hazardous Materials Program functions and employees from the Contra Costa County Health Services to the Contra Costa Fire Protection District.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The current costs of the Hazardous Materials Program under Health Services totals $11,812,243, which is 100% funded through fees.
Based on changes to total compensation, new positions and classifications being established, and compensation subject to retirement benefits, it is anticipated there will be a net increase in personnel costs of approximately $500,000 annually. This represents an approximate increase of 5% over current budgeted costs of the program. It should be noted this increase assumes all positions are filled and there are no vacancies. Currently, there are four vacancies at the Hazardous Materials Specialist position and recruitment for the positions is pending.
BACKGROUND:
In 2022, union representatives and staff in the County Hazardous Materials Division brought the concept of transitioning the Program to the Fire District to the County’s Labor Relations Division. Over the course of several meetings, the County agreed to explore the concept further with the Fire District and provide an outline of how such a transition would occur.
Between May of 2024 and March of 2025, the Fire District and Labor Relations met with staff and employee organizations to review the proposed revisions to classification structure in the event of a transition of the Hazardous Materials Program to the Fire District. For Teamsters, Local 856, it was determined that the majority of staff would transition into Fire-specific HazMat Inspector positions. For IFPTE, Local 21, the majority of staff would transition to specific Fire District positions equivalent to their current roles. Following action by the Board of Supervisors on this item, the Fire District and Labor Relations will finalize these concepts in side letters of agreement.
Transitioning the Hazardous Materials Division to the Fire District is not a novel concept and was most recently considered in 2018, but did not move forward. Since that time, several changes have occurred that would support the transition. Given the Fire District, with its own Type I Hazardous Materials Response Team, now encompasses a large majority of the total county footprint, with most of the industrial facilities, the County Hazardous Materials Response Team has a limited area where their response is necessary for primary mitigation of a hazardous materials release. The Fire District maintains a 42-member roster of Hazardous Materials Specialists, with an average of 12 members on duty, 24 hours, every day. The District is anticipating increasing the number of trained Hazardous Materials Specialists to 60 in the upcoming fiscal year. The combining of the two Hazardous Materials Response Teams into one unified team is an opportunity of the consolidation. The combining of skill sets, experience, local knowledge of facilities, and standardized training, response, and communication expectations will enhance the overall hazardous materials response capabilities for the County.
The Hazardous Materials Programs Division of the Health Department administers the Contra Costa County Certified Unified Program Agency ("CUPA") and administers the Industrial Safety Ordinance (Ordinance Code Chapter 450-8). The CUPA operates the Hazardous Materials Business Plan (HMBP) Program, Hazardous Waste Generator (HWG) Program, Underground Storage Tank (UST) Program, California Accidental Release Prevention (CalARP) Program and Aboveground Petroleum Storage Act (APSA) Program. As directed by the Board in the early 1990s, all of the activities of the CUPA are funded through fees. The County Hazardous Materials Division is also one of the multiple hazardous materials response teams in the county trained as a Type 1 Hazardous Materials Response Team. The Division currently works very closely with the Health Officer on matters related to threats to public health. This can range from threats as a result of facility non-compliance, offsite consequences involving hazardous materials from non-regulated facilities, or large chemical/industrial incidents. This close working relationship ensures protection of public health and necessary actions such as issuance of Health Advisories and Shelter in Place.
Members of the County Hazardous Materials Division remain committed to public protection through their CUPA inspection work, including a renewed emphasis on enforcement. A CUPA is a local agency certified by the California Environmental Protection Agency to implement and enforce six state hazardous waste and hazardous materials regulatory management programs. Of the six CUPA programs, the Hazardous Materials Business Plan program was established in 1986 and is similar in scope to the Federal Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). The goal is to prevent or minimize the damage to public health and safety and the environment from a release or threatened release of hazardous materials. This is achieved by businesses providing their chemical inventories to local agencies that in turn provide that information to their emergency responders. This program is not optimized for information to be provided to our emergency responders and would immediately benefit from the combined information, intelligence sharing, and mission focus of the one combined organization.
An ability to have CUPA and Fire Code enforcement efforts working seamlessly across one organization will increase hazard assessments and information sharing for our members, but will also contribute to a reduction in enforcement gaps that can occur when multiple agencies with different disciplines perform inspection work of occupancies and facilities. Overall public safety will be improved under one combined organization whose mission involves both CUPA and Fire Code enforcement.
If Hazardous Materials Program functions are transferred, the District will become the CUPA and will provide services as the CUPA throughout the County. In addition, the Industrial Safety Ordinance will be administered by the District with the same staff that are currently doing such work at the County, who will be transitioned to the District as part of this consolidation. This would require an amendment to the Industrial Safety Ordinance authorizing the District to enforce the ordinance.
The committees established under the current Hazardous Materials Program will remain with membership and meeting frequency unchanged. Staff currently assigned to manage and participate in these committees will also remain. The Industrial Safety Ad-Hoc Committee of the Board would remain and continue with the same functions and authority as it currently exists.
Work has already begun to reinforce and build a strong relationship between Contra Costa County Health and the Fire District in regards to internal communication between the agencies, establishing clear expectations for roles and responsibilities during an incident, and the coordination and collaboration for both agencies in the post-incident investigation, enforcement, community response and outreach processes. Our first meeting to start this work between the Health Officer cadre and the Fire District’s leadership team is scheduled in August.
Next Steps
The timing of this consolidation is being considered for a January 1, 2026 effective date. Similar to the annexations experienced by the Fire District over the previous three years, there will be necessary planning, preparation, and logistics to consider.
The staff at the County Hazardous Materials Division working on CUPA, will transition to the Fire District on an agreed upon transition date. Several of the personnel will transition into Fire District specific job classifications as part of the consolidation, while others will remain in their County current classifications. All members of the Fire District’s new Hazardous Materials Division will remain in their current physical office locations with the current lease for the office becoming the responsibility of the Fire District.
Various legal instruments will need to be drafted and approved by the Board to provide the authority for the Fire District to operate as the CUPA, administer and enforce the Industrial Safety Ordinance, take over the lease of the current office space, and to charge and collect the fees associated with the program. An evaluation of the current fee structure for the program is warranted, and should be performed annually, to ascertain whether fee revenue is sufficient to cover the ongoing program costs. If it is determined that fees need to be revised based on cost increases, with no alternative revenue source or cost reduction or cost realignment, a future fee increase may be brought to the Board for consideration. Approvals will need to be obtained by the California Environmental Protection Agency regarding the change of the CUPA from the County to the Fire District.
County Human Resources will need to approve two (2) new job classifications to accommodate the transition of the Hazardous Materials Specialist I/II and Supervising Haz Mat Specialist position into Fire District classifications. Modifications to certain job descriptions may be necessary, as well, but it is not anticipated there will need to be any additional job classifications created.
While considerable work has already been done with the impacted labor groups, there will need to be concentrated effort to complete these processes and execute side letters for the impacts of the transition.
Financial accounting and budgets will need to transition to the Fire District, however these will need to remain separate and distinct from the District’s General Operating Fund for proper accounting or CUPA related revenues and expenses.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
The Hazardous Materials Program would remain in its current state of operations as a part of Contra Costa Health Services if it is not transferred to the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.