Pasco proposes creating water rescue team

The Pasco Fire Department wants to create a water rescue team that could allow first responders to get on local rivers quicker during emergencies.

There have been 30 drownings in rivers in and surrounding the Tri-Cities over the last four years, with three cases in Pasco in 2015, officials said.

A water rescue team would cut down on response times, give crews the ability to put out boat fires and provide a line of defense against hazardous waste spills, Pasco Fire Chief Bob Gear said.

The department would be the first fire or law enforcement agency in the area to have a swift-water rescue unit, Gear said.

The city council is expected to vote on whether to approve the team at the Feb. 16 meeting.

Despite having 13 square miles of shoreline within its jurisdiction, the fire department has no rescue boat in its fleet and firefighters are forced to stay on shore when they respond to emergencies in the water.

“It’s a really big gap, and it has been there for a very long time,” Gear said.

The problem gets even worse during the winter when rescue boats and swimmers are in short supply in the area, Gear said.

The sheriff’s offices in Benton and Franklin counties have boats, as well as the volunteer group Columbia Basin Dive Rescue, though it takes some time to get the vessels into the water, eating up critical seconds in life or death situations.

The Coast Guard station in Kennewick does not do search and rescue missions.

Gear pointed to recent cases of a reported jumper from the blue bridge and a duck hunter who fell off a kayak in Finley as examples of the need for a rescue unit.

Firefighters from Benton and Franklin counties had to look from the shoreline after the report of the jumper was called in. No one was ever found in the water.

It took more than 30 minutes, Gear said, to get a boat into the Columbia River to begin searching.

The duck hunter tipped over into the Columbia while retrieving a bird he had shot. It was difficult for first responders to get to the remote location, and the man suffered from hypothermia after being in the water for up to 25 minutes.

“There’s certainly has been times where we have needed boats quicker than we have been able to get them there,” Gear said.

The rescue boat used by the unit would have the ability to put out fires on other boats, something the department has never been able to do before, Gear said. The department has already identified money in the existing budget to buy it.

The department also has spill kits from the state Department of Ecology for hazardous waste and oil spills.

Firefighters within the department brought up the idea of creating a unit. Five were recently trained in swift-water rescue, and Gear hopes to have another four trained by the end of the year.

Members of the unit would be called out for rescues in the Columbia, Snake and Yakima rivers, as well as ponds and canals in the area. The unit would also reach out to the public at community events to discuss boating safety.

The unit would focus primarily on water rescues and would leave underwater dive work to the Dive Rescue team.

The unit hopes to work in close collaboration with Dive Rescue, law enforcement in Benton and Franklin counties and other agencies that respond to emergencies on the water.

Troy McGregor, operations director for Dive Rescue, said Pasco’s proposed unit would be another asset for the area and could help save lives in the future.

“Seconds count in the water,” McGregor said.

If city officials approve, Gear is hopeful the rescue boat will be ready to use by summer when more people are on the water, he said.

This story was originally published February 14, 2016 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Pasco proposes creating water rescue team."