Ag Survey Question – Fertilizer Composition

For the last couple of years I have tried to only look at CSAT FAQ updates on a weekly basis. The main reason for this is that the answers to most of the questions provide clarification rather than truly new information. Some times, however, a newly posted question/answer provides such insight into the CSAT process that it deserves to be covered on a more immediate basis. Such is the case with the latest addition to the FAQ list:

1691: How will I know if a fertilizer includes a COI at or above the minimum concentration listed in Appendix A? Where can I find the percent by weight of a COI in a fertilizer?

There are generally two types of agricultural chemicals that are covered in this Agriculture Survey, pesticides and fertilizers. Since pesticides are closely regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, it is fairly easy to identify the DHS chemicals of interest (COI) that are found in any registered pesticide and the concentration of that COI in the pesticide. All of that information is required to be listed on the label and in the MSDS sheet. More over, DHS is actually able to pre-populate the survey with the COI list for most registered pesticides, requiring the Preparer only to verify the actual percentage listed on the label.

Fertilizers present a particular problem with this survey. Most fertilizers boldly report the equivalent percentage of the three common mineral nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. The actual chemicals that provide these three nutrients will vary significantly. For example nitrogen may come from anhydrous ammonia, ammonia, or ammonium nitrate; all COI. Or it may come from urea or any number of ammonium salts; none of which are COI.

The actual chemicals used in the fertilizer may not be listed on the label. This would be especially true of many organic fertilizers, particularly compost. The manufacturer may simply conduct chemical tests to measure the mineral nutrient content.

Even where the manufacturer does know what the actual chemicals are in their particular fertilizer blend, labeling and MSDS requirements may allow the manufacturer to avoid listing the actual chemicals due to the proprietary nature of the blend. Current EPA regulations allow for the manufacturer to simply list the hazards associated with the chemical blend rather than its constituent components. Unfortunately, the EPA hazard listing requirements do not match up well with the DHS COI listing requirements. This is why the response to this question includes the following statement.

“The fertilizer Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) may provide [emphasis added] the percent by weight of the specific material in the fertilizer.”

There are going to be some fertilizers that the Preparer is just not going to be able to tell whether or not they contain COI at concentrations above the concentration minimums listed in Appendix A. What would have been nice if DHS had included a statement in this response that reflected that possibility; something along the lines of:

“If neither the label nor the MSDS for the fertilizer provides a list of the constituent chemicals, or doesn’t provide concentrations for the chemicals that it does list, do not include that fertilizer in your responses to this Survey.”

Of course, what would have been more helpful to DHS in their data collection effort would have been to provide a method of identifying the fertilizers that did not provide enough information on their label or MSDS to complete the Survey. A requirement to list the Fertilizer name and the name of the manufacturer would probably have been sufficient.

CFATS Knowledge Center Update 09-03-10

Last week the folks at the DHS CSAT Help Desk added one new question to the extensive Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list on the CFATS Knowledge Center web site. That new questions was:

1690: In the Agriculture Survey, what is the meaning of the word “transfer” in the phrase “sell, transfer, or commercially apply”?

As is true with most of the answers on this site, there is no truly new information in the response to this question, just a brief clarifying comment. Still I think that it is worthwhile for anyone responsible for submitting CSAT information to read each of these responses; as it helps to understand the thinking of the people working at the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD). Anyone working CFATS issues at one of the facilities being asked to submit the Agriculture Survey should certainly read the answer to this specific question.

DHS CFATS FAQ Update 08-13-10

This week the folks at the ISCD Help Desk added four new questions (and answers) to the CFATS frequently asked questions (FAQ) list on the CFATS Knowledge Center. All four of the questions deal with the on-going Agriculture Survey. Those questions are: 1685: What is the definition of a pesticide for the purpose of the Agriculture Survey? 1686: I submitted the Agriculture Survey for my facility and, in reviewing my printed copy, found a significant error. What can I do? 1687: I didn’t identify any COI that functions as a pesticide, yet I was still asked to identify pesticide products. What do I do? 1689: I am an agricultural facility subject to the indefinite extension to the Top-Screen submission deadline, published on January 9, 2008. I purchase and apply at my agricultural facility a product containing COI from a distributor. For the purpose of the Agriculture Survey, do I “commercially apply” the COI-containing product? There is no real new information in the answers, just clarification of already available data. As I usually do, though, I recommend reading the answers, even if your facility does not have to complete the Survey. It does provide some insight into how the folks at DHS look at CFATS issues. For example, the gap in the numbers between question 3 and 4 is something that has happened fairly routinely over the last three years. The ISCD staff prepares a number of questions that they think will be asked about new programs, that way the Help Desk folks have a prepared and approved answer on hand when the questions are actually asked. Some sort of internal rule requires that the question has to be actually presented to the Help Desk before they can publish the question/response on the FAQ list. Maybe we'll see question 1688, may be not.

Agriculture Survey Webinars

Today DHS-ISCD posted a new note on the ‘Latest News’ section of the CFATS Knowledge Center announcing that ISCD would be conducting two webinars on the Agriculture Survey. No exact dates/times were posted as ISCD explained that the affected “facilities will be contacted directly with webinar registration information”. They did note that they planned on conducting these webinars before Labor Day, presumably providing enough time to complete the Survey before the 9-20-10 submission deadline. I would expect that the notification would probably be made by email to the facility Submitter and perhaps the Preparer. I would suggest that facilities try to get everyone involved in completing the Survey to sit down and watch the webinar as a group. That seems to be the best way to get the most out of these things. Additionally, write down any questions that you have about the program in advance of the webinar. ISCD usually includes a question-answer session at the end of these things. Written questions help you to make sure that all of your questions are answered.

Agriculture Survey

Last week I talked a bit about the mechanics of the new Agriculture Survey that DHS is asking about 1200 high-risk chemical facilities to complete. Now I want to take a closer look at what types of information DHS is looking for in the Survey. The Facility’s completing the survey will be needing to download the Users Guide (UG) and the Questions Guide (QG) from the CSAT web site.

 NOTE: The word ‘Facility’ denotes the facility completing the survey; ‘facility’ denotes an agriculture facility served by the Facility.

Questions about Customers 

The first thing that is of interest here is that the questions in this survey are being asked about the customers of the facilities. Facilities are not being asked to identify specific customers by name or location or even the number of customers, but they are being asked to information to characterize their customers by their agriculture operations and their chemical use. Once a facility ascertains that they have customers covered by the survey {customers that use COI based chemicals in the preparation for, or application to, “treatment of crops, feed, land, livestock (including poultry) or other areas of an agricultural production facility” (QG, pg 3)} facilities are asked to identify the NAICS Codes that cover their customer’s facilities.

There is a list of NAICS Codes in the Survey, but it is not an exhaustive list. Surveyed facilities will respond ‘Yes’ to each of the listed Codes that apply to their customers’ facilities and then separately list any other NAICS Codes that apply to any of their covered customers. The QG notes that the NAICS Codes listed in the survey will link to a Census Bureau page that explains each of the codes. It would have been helpful to the Preparers of this Survey if the QG provided such links so that they could make the determination of how to complete this section before going on-line to complete the Survey. The next set of questions deal with how COI are provided to the Customer; whether they are picked-up by the Customer, delivered by the Facility or applied by the Facility (STA – sold, transferred or applied). Since these questions are not tied to any specific facility it is very possible that there could be a ‘Yes’ response to each of these separate questions. 

Finally, the Survey asks a series of questions about the COI related activities of the Customers’ facilities. They all start off with the phrase “(t)o the best of your knowledge” and then ask about the shipment or reselling of COI by the Customers. Also covered in this section are generic questions about the COI related security programs at the Customer locations. It is not clear how useful the information provided in this section will be to DHS. With only ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Don’t Know’ responses available DHS will have no way of knowing how many facilities the responses apply to. Some of the Facilities completing this survey could have hundreds of covered customers. If even a single one of those customers was known to re-sell the COI-containing products the Facility would have to answer yes. Or, all of the Customers could be re-selling the COI-containing products; DHS will have no way of knowing.

Chemicals of Interest 

The bulk of the survey, as would be expected, deals with the various DHS Chemicals of Interest (COI) that might be included in products STA at Customer facilities. There are some interesting differences between the way the COI are handled in this Survey and the way they are handled in the Top Screen. The foremost difference is the fact that DHS wants information on COI based upon minimum concentration not Screening Threshold Quantity (STQ). Fuels are specifically exempted from Survey reporting.

DHS wants Facilities to respond to questions on all COI that are STA at agricultural facilities if the COI is in a concentration above the minimum concentration listed in Appendix A, 6 CFR Part 27. The questions should be answered regardless if the Facility has them at or above STQ levels. The Survey will be pre-populated with COI listed in the Facility’s latest Top Screen. The facility will then add any COI STA if it is above the minimum concentration. The Preparer will then identify (checking ‘Yes’ or ‘No’) if the COI is contained in a Fertilizer, Pesticide, or Other. Any given COI could be identified in multiple categories.

These terms are ‘defined’ as follows (UG, pg 13):

“● Pesticide, including active ingredients, fumigants, sterilants, and COI used in food preparation/preservation;“

● Fertilizer, including as a fertilizer ingredient; or“

● Other, for any other agricultural-related purpose.”

These definitions are not very well documented or explained. It seems to me that some Facilities will be expansive in their inclusion of products in these categories while others will be more restrictive. This could make the DHS analysis of this information complicated to say the least.

COI in Pesticides 

For each COI that a Facility identifies as being included in a ‘pesticide’, the Survey will provide a list of EPA approved pesticides containing that COI. The Facility will identify each the listed pesticides that it STA to/at agriculture facilities. If the pesticide is not listed there are provisions made for adding those pesticides to the list for the Facility. A series of questions will then be asked about each of the ‘pesticides’ included on the Facility’s list. Questions will address the concentration (weight %) of the COI in that pesticide as sold, transferred or applied by the Facility.

Other questions will address the type and size of the containers in which the pesticide is STA. Next a series of questions will address the customer facilities to which the pesticide is STA. The Preparer will identify each of the NAICS to which the pesticide is STA. The amount and frequency of the STA will be identified. Finally there will be a series of questions about the types of security programs currently in place for the identified pesticides. I question the utility of these security system based questions because they could apply to only one of many customers, a significant number of customers or all of the customers of a given facility.

The way the questions appear to be worded will not allow DHS to distinguish between the three categories. DHS will have to use extreme care when drawing conclusions from the answers to these questions.

COI in Fertilizers 

The only real difference between the fertilizer and pesticide questions is that there will be not pre-populated list of approved fertilizers containing the identified COI. The preparer will have to identify by commercial name each of the fertilizers STA that contain COI at or above the minimum concentration identified in Appendix A. The actual concentration of the listed fertilizer COI will then be listed for each fertilizer. The remainder of the questions in the Fertilizer Section of the Survey will be very similar to the pesticide questions.

COI in Other Products

The final section of the Survey deals with COI contained in ‘Other’ products STA at/to agriculture facilities. As with ‘fertilizers’ the product list will have to be entered by the facility. With these products the Preparer will also have to provide a brief description of what the product is used for. Once again the remaining questions will be essentially the same as those asked for ‘pesticides’.

General Observations

I understand that DHS has a politically difficult job in trying to justify applying the CFATS regulations to agriculture facilities. Agriculture is the single largest politically protected industry in the United States. While they like to assume the mantel of the ‘family farm’ run by simple ‘farmers’, the great majority of agri-business in the United States is BIG Business. The Agri-Lobby is well funded and politically connected.

While a large number of the agriculture facilities in this country are in the country and relatively isolated many are located in towns and cities scattered around the country. An argument could certainly be made that with isolated exceptions these facilities are not much in the way of being terrorist targets for release COI. Their very ‘isolation’ and general lack of security do, however, make them potential targets for the theft/diversion of chemicals.

The filing of Top Screens by these facilities would have eliminated the vast majority of these facilities from further regulation under CFATS. It would have been over and done with by now. Unfortunately DHS must now justify requiring these facilities to submit Top Screens in ways that were never required for other chemical facilities.

I’m not sure how DHS hopes to use the data from this Survey to provide that justification. The way that the data is requested in the Survey will leave any report from this Survey open to all sorts of questions and claims of inadequacy and lack of specificity. I suspect that this will only provide the Agri-Lobby with additional ammunition to claim special exemption from the CFATS regulations.

Minor CFATS Website Updates 08-02-10

Over the weekend a couple of CFATS related web pages have undergone some minor updates. As predicted last week the CSAT web page was updated to include a link to the Agriculture Survey Question Guide that was announced last week on the CFATS Knowledge Center. The CFATS Knowledge Center was updated by removing the note about the fax line at ISCD not working; presumably that means that it is now working. Additionally they added an ‘Agriculture Survey’ button on the page that links to a page for the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) related to that program.

CFATS Knowledge Center Page Update 07-28-10

As of this morning the CFATS Knowledge Center web page now contains a link to a CSAT Agriculture Survey Questions Guide in the Documentation Section of the page. I would expect that this link will also be added to the Chemical Security Assessment Tool page. DHS might want to consider adding a page dedicated to the CSAT Agriculture Survey to their CSAT web site. They could provide a brief description of the purpose and scope of the survey as well as providing these links. They might also want to consider providing a link to a copy of the letter that they have sent out to the Ag supplier facilities. This would also provide them with a ready forum for posting the results of their survey.