Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River will be getting an increase in security and response measures to combat chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.

The Installation Protection Program Lite was a program created to evaluate installations’ ability to combat these threats and give them both equipment and training to keep the people who work and live aboard them safe.

Part of this plan is to equip military police, fire fighters and hazardous material teams with protective suites, biological sampling and collection kits, radiation and chemical monitors, dosimeters, decontamination systems and gas detector tubes, according to Carol Rivers, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency installation lead for the Installation Protection Program.

Both installations will be equipped with mass notification systems, said Rivers. Giant Voice loud speaker systems will be upgraded and towers will be added to help notify installation patrons of an emergency. A part of this mass notification system is the addition of a telephone alerting system to Camp Lejeune and an upgrade to New River’s telephone alerting system, according to Rivers. This capability will allow increased notification to on and off-duty personnel during a CBRN event to include pre-recorded or live messages. The alerting system will be capable of placing emergency calls to a specified set of phone numbers and automated information announcements with installation-approved messages. This will enable designated personnel to be notified within five minutes of an emergency.

The program will be put in place after a number of exercises starting with a table top exercise and ending with a full-scale exercise involving first responders, according to Rivers.