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About Us
The Hazardous Materials Training and Research Institute's (HMTRI) Kirkwood programs provide contract and short-term environmental health and safety training, and operate Community College Consortium for Health and Safety Training (CCCHST),one of 18 model worker training programs recognized by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences NIEHS. In 1975, Kirkwood received the nation's first EPA Clean Water Act 109(b) appropriation to help fund the building of a state wastewater training facility that allowed the programs to expand. The Center was opened in 1976 as the first 109(b) funded wastewater training center in the nation. In 1979 and again in 1990, additions that nearly doubled the size of the facility were added. In 2003 the Environmental Training Center again expanded and was renamed the Community Training and Response Center.
The Center houses four dedicated classrooms with seating capacities of 80, 40, 30, 20 and 12; an analytical lab with 24 work stations; a chemical prep room; an instrument room; 24-station computer laboratory; a library dedicated to HazMat, Ag Terror, and Mass Fatality resources; offices for 22 college staff members and six Linn County Emergency Management staff; a maintenance lab with 24 work stations; a tool room; and a pilot scale 10,000-gallon per day wastewater treatment plant. In September 2004, Kirkwood opened a $2 million addition to the CTRC supported by Kirkwood, Linn County, the City of Cedar Rapids, and local businesses. The facility houses the Linn County Emergency Management Offices and communication center, offices for Kirkwood’s National Mass Fatalities Institute (NMFI), and Iowa’s IA-1, Disaster Medical Assistance Team Office. All programs in the building leverage common resources including an 80-seat Emergency Operations Center, training rooms, and communications networks. The Emergency Operation Center and all conference rooms have Iowa Communications Network (ICN) connections to the over 1,000 ICN equipped classrooms and offices located throughout the State of Iowa plus satellite uplink capability for reaching the nation. Adjacent to the training center is the Hazardous Materials Training
Grounds.
The second rail car is a 12,000 gallon sulfuric acid car modified by ADM to include a raised safety railing, a simulated leaking tank valve, and a leaking rupture disk. The man-way cover was welded closed to restrict access to the interior of the car. The car was donated by Union Tank Car Company of Chicago, Illinois. The third car is a chlorine car, 90-ton, DOT 105A500W. It is a pressure car with no man-way to access the interior without disassembly of the car’s valve cap. The car was also modified by raising the safety rails from AAR standard to OSHA standard. A fouth car at the site is a 70-foot box car used for equipment storage. In the near future, a 23,000-gallon ethanol car will be added to the rail facility. Major equipment supply items supporting the training grounds total in excess of $750,000 and include hazmat response gear for 60 trainees; fire fighter turnout gear for 30; hazmat response, fire response and rescue equipment; state of the air monitoring and environmental sampling equipment. HMTRI facilities and equipment are supported by a full-time equipment technician and are housed in a 30 x 50-ft heated garage that is also home to the programs’ NFPA Class I Pumper Fire Truck.
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HMTRI
was established in 1987 by two Iowa community colleges, Kirkwood Community
College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the Eastern Iowa Community College
District (EICCD) in Davenport, Iowa, that have long been active in
environmental health and safety education and training. The purpose
of the Institute is to promote worker protection and the maintenance
of a clean and safe environment through education and training. HMTRI
is operated in Cedar Rapids by Kirkwood’s Environmental Health,
Safety and Security Department and in the Eastern Iowa District by
the The Advanced Technology Environmental and Energy Center (ATEEC).
HMTRI is recognized as one of a select number of national centers for
excellence by several federal agencies, including the:
To
find out more about HMTRI, its educational opportunities,
partnerships, training programs, products, services and initiatives,
return to the 
The three acres were developed in 1986 to provide a safe and
controlled site for the delivery of many forms of industrial hazardous
materials training. These include fire control techniques, corrosive
spill response procedures, confined space entry and rescue, flammable
liquid spill response, compressed gas release response, pipe and valve
leak response, and loading dock spill response. The basic grounds consist
of a 100 ft x 165 ft concrete pad, an equipment storage building, a
simulations lab building, a fully instrumented burn building, and five
simulated above-ground confined space tanks for vertical rescue, and
various simulated tunnels and sewers for horizontal rescue. Runoff
from the facility is controlled, with the option to discharge into
the city's sanitary sewer system after treatment. Adjacent to the grounds
is a field, stream, wood lot, and drum storage site used in both spill
response and waste site training programs. North of the concrete pad
is an approximately two-acre site used for farm rescue training and
new rail hazmat training. 
The rail hazmat training grounds uses approximately 200 feet of railroad
track and three specially modified railroad tank cars. The first car
is a 15,000-gallon general purpose, insulated tank car for transporting
corn syrup, donated and specially modified by ADM Rail of Cedar Rapids.
By adding a door and stairway at the end of the car, instructors safely
simulate the confined space inside a rail tank car without any of the
associated hazards. ADM also modified the safety railing around the
man-way raising the railing four inches to meet OSHA standards and
added an additional walkway to accommodate more than three students
and instructors on top of the car. A stairway was also added to the
ladder on the east side of the car to facilitate safe student and instructor
access to the car ladder. ADM also made several simulated leaks through
valves and the sidewall of the car to be used for hazmat training.
This is the only car of its type in the Midwest to Kirkwood’s
knowledge. 