Yesterday the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety
Administration published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (83 FR
18126) for a public Research and Development Forum that will be held May 16
and 17, 2018, in Washington, DC. The meeting will review recently completed
projects, provide updates on on-going investigations and solicit public input
on possible future activities.
The notice comments that the
PHMSA Office of Hazardous Materials Safety (OHMS) is particularly interested in
the research gaps associated with energetic materials characterization and
transport, safe transport of energy products, safe containment and
transportation of compressed gasses, safe packaging and transportation of
charge storage devices, and others. As part of this focus OHMS intends to
address the safety gaps recently identified in a 2017 cooperative research
report completed by the National Academy of Sciences titled “Safely
Transporting Hazardous Liquids and Gases in a Changing U.S. Energy Landscape”.
Those gaps are identified in the ‘Recommendations’ section
of the report. They include recommendations that PHMSA should:
• Consult with industry on
developments impacting energy liquids and gas transportation and report
annually on steps that are being taken to monitor and assess the risk
implications of such developments (pg 118);
• Evaluate the utility of existing
incident- and traffic-reporting data for the purpose of identifying and
assessing public safety and environmental risks associated with transporting
energy liquids and gases, determine whether new and improved incident- and
traffic-reporting systems are needed (pg 118):
• Encourage pipeline, barge, and
rail carriers to make greater use of quantitative risk analysis tools to inform
decisions about the routing of energy liquids and gases and about priorities
for maintenance and integrity management of the equipment and infrastructure
used (pg 119);
Regularly and systematically assess
the risk-reducing effects of the HHFT rule, perhaps starting with a review of
the crash and thermal performance of the new DOT-117 tank car designs (pg 119);
• Seek to model the full array of
factors that can give rise to and affect the severity of flammable liquids
train crashes (pg 119); and
• Make a concerted effort to ensure that federal
emergency preparedness grants are being used to meet the planning, training,
and resource needs of communities that are facing new and unfamiliar risks as a
result of the changes that have occurred in the routing and volume of energy
liquids and gas shipments (pg 120);
The registration
page indicates that there will be a small-group discussion breakout on the
second day of the meeting. The groups have been identified as:
• Risk management and communication
(electronic hazard communication, GHS and PHMSA HM communications, and emergency
response);
• Emerging technologies and risk
mitigation (energy products classification, energy products packaging, and
batteries and fuel cells);
• Packaging integrity (bulk
packaging and non-bulk packaging); and
• Technical analysis of risk (energetic
materials and compressed gases)
The meeting will include provisions for attending via teleconference
and on-line participation. Details on those processes will become available at
some future date on the PHMSA Research
and Development Branch web site.
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