Bio techs write POEMS?

Published April 14, 2012
By Staff Sgt. Heather Skinkle
451st Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Periodic Occupational Environmental Monitoring Summary, or POEM, is made up of air, water, epidemic, disease, noise, chemicals, and other data surveys of the environmental factors around Kandahar Airfield. This report is compiled by Bioenvironmental technicians and placed into every deployed service members records for future reference.

"We try to sample and eliminate unknowns before we place people on a site," said Staff Sgt. Kayla Otto, 451st Air Expeditionary Wing Bioenvironmental engineering craftsman. "We try to track the potential hazards so in 30 years, if someone thinks they were exposed to something from a deployment, we can reference that and see if it was actually at the deployed site."

They aren't security forces, but Bioenvironmental's chief job concern is protecting Airmen, not from bullets, but base hazards.

"I like making a difference and keeping someone safe," said Otto. "I can change a process and better protect someone."

Bioenvironmental might also improve an Airmen's job by testing the air and discovering the air quality is high enough that an Airman doesn't require a respirator, said Otto.

The wing's Bio section has only existed at Kandahar Airfield for three deployment rotations, which isn't long enough to collect much environmental data, but their impact is still widespread.

"We do a wide variety of things that most people wouldn't expect," said Tech. Sgt. Steven Hall, 451st AEW Bioenvironmental NCO in charge.

The section has varying roles in emergency management, industrial hygiene, and occupational health, said Hall.

"We collect quantitative data for noise, water, chemicals, and waste for Kandahar Airfield," said Hall. "We also approve the all the chemicals that the Air Force shops here use."

Occupational health breaks down hazards into categories like water or air pollutants, and the Airmen have to make sure everything is in line with Air Force occupational safety and health administration standards.

Safe, potable drinking water is a major concern. Bio continually tests water sources all over KAF. If American forces frequent a KAF establishment, a store on the boardwalk or coffee shop at the British compound, then it is fair game and water samples are tested for purity, said Otto.

There are specific tools to test for specific hazards, and for each, the guidance is different, said Hall.

"We don't have an all-inclusive instrument because each survey requires specialized tools to assess specific hazards," said Hall.

But in a deployed environment sometimes the Bio Airmen have to make do with available items. Otto and Hall not only wrote the operating instructions and started a fit testing schedule for Airmen wearing respirators, a first on KAF, but had to make do with old school methods.

"When I first arrived I found out I had to start fit testing people and we didn't have the proper equipment," said Otto. "Before I left home station my shop chief told me about performing Airmen's respirator fit tests using smoke tubes instead of the portacount machine."

The simple method involves placing smoke near the individual's respirator and then observing whether the mask protects them from the smoke or not.

Testing the water and air quality takes a lot of time but attention is even paid to KAF's underground spaces as well.

"Cable dawgs have to crawl through small underground spaces and there could be hydrogen sulfide that knocks them out," said Hall. "We test for that before they go underground."

Bioenvironmental, a small two-person shop with a large to-do list, defends the base by protecting Airmen from a major inside threat: environmental factors, above or below ground that can severely affect mission completion, now and in the future.

"People only think about the short term," said Hall. "When thinking about health and safety you have to think about long term exposure."