When a tanker truck of deadly hydrochloric acid overturns on U.S. 85 south of Lusk, who you gonna call?

Wyoming's Regional Response team based in Casper, that's who.

The Casper-based team is one of six units in the state that are designed to respond to emergencies such as hazardous materials spills and terrorism attacks.

On Thursday, the Casper unit, which consists of members of the Casper Fire Department and other local emergency response agencies, received a truck and trailer combination that it will use to carry supplies to emergencies all over Natrona, Converse and Niobrara counties.

The truck and trailer were purchased by the state of Wyoming for $72,500, said Lt. Stewart Anderson, Natrona County's emergency management coordinator.

The state's five other regional response teams based in Cheyenne, Rock Springs, Gillette, Worland and Riverton also received a truck and trailer, said Egbert von Seggern, a shift commander with the Casper Fire Department.

While the regional response teams' new vehicles were paid for by the state, the equipment that goes in them is being paid for by the federal government through homeland security grants.

Officials in other states, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have criticized the funding system that gives Wyoming more money per capita than most other states.

Exactly how much it will cost the federal government to equip the Casper-based regional response vehicle is hard to estimate, Anderson said.

But much of the equipment, such as hazardous materials suits that cost $3,000 each, can be very expensive, he said.

The costs of sending the Casper-based regional response team out to an emergency will normally be paid for by the party responsible for creating the emergency - for example, the clean-up of a hydrochloric acid spill would be paid for by the owner of the acid, Anderson said.

But if the unit responds to a terrorist attack, the bill will be picked up by the federal government, he added.

There is no way of knowing exactly how many times the Casper-based regional response team will be called into action, Anderson said. But such emergencies have been fairly infrequent in the past, he added.

"They are not a once-a-week thing or even a once-a-month thing," he said.