Clorox Announces Voluntary IST

Earlier this week the Clorox company announced that the were switching their consumer bleach manufacturing from chlorine gas to high-concentration sodium hypochlorite feed stock. The change will be phased in at all seven production facilities over a number of years. The Clorox company announcement noted that this was done as part of their commitment to strengthen their operations and “add another layer of security”. Greenpeace was quick to applaud the move that eliminates both the chlorine gas used on site and the “equally disastrous risks posed by the transport of 90-ton rail cars of chlorine gas”. Greenpeace has been pressuring all consumer bleach producers to eliminate the use of chlorine gas in the manufacture of their product. The move by Clorox being announced this week is sure to be used as justification for the IST provision included in all three titles of HR 2868 that will be debated on the House floor this week. Actually, the opponents of the mandatory IST provisions of the bill are likely to be able to use the same announcement to support their position. Voluntary IST Implementation The chemical industry will be quick to point out that this is a perfect example of how responsible chemical companies are continuously evaluating their processes to ensure the highest levels of security and safety. If the implementation is feasible and appropriate to the facility, an enlightened industry will institute the techniques without government intervention. Greenpeace would, of course, respond that if that were the case, then Clorox would have made the change years ago. Greenpeace wouldn’t have had to wage a public relations campaign to convince the company to change over to an obviously safer process. Practically speaking this switch-over demonstrates how complex an IST implementation can be. Clorox is able to do a plant-by-plant switch over to minimize the disruption to their business. According to Clorox CEO Knauss “Our plant-by-plant approach will also enable us to apply what we learn along the way, ensure supply availability, minimize business disruptions and help make sure the transition is undertaken in the most effective manner possible." Since CFATS addresses each plant separately, all seven plants would be required to implement this IST process essentially simultaneously. This would result in a dangerous business interruption in a competitive market place. Without being able to learn from previous plant mistakes the change over would take longer in total plant hours. It would also significantly increase corporate costs for executing the total change over. Is this IST? Actually, this may not be an ‘IST implementation’ under the current provisions of HR 2868. Clorox is not eliminating the use of chlorine gas in their new process; they are simply moving it to another location, the manufacturer of the high concentration sodium hypochlorite solution. If that manufacturer uses chlorine gas in their operations, instead of direct manufacture from salt for instance, there has been no elimination of risk only transfer of risk. It is unlikely that a new facility is being constructed to manufacture the industrial strength bleach that will be used at these seven facilities. To determine if this is an IST implementation that could be directed by the Secretary the question becomes does the bleach production facility increase in Tier level ranking because of the new business. If it does, the Secretary could not require Clorox to implement this process change. An interesting question arises if the manufacturing facility is already a Tier I facility, but this new business requires a doubling of the typical on-site chlorine storage. The current wording of the §2111 provisions would allow the Secretary to order the change in that case, since the Tier ranking would not change. Does increasing the population at risk at the other facility justify mandating an IST requirement at the Clorox facility. Then one needs to consider the transportation consequences of this change. An 80 ton rail car of chlorine gas should produce about 5.4 million pounds of household bleach (6% Sodium Hypochlorite). To produce the same amount of household bleach from a concentrated hypochlorite solution (50% is about the maximum concentration available) would take a little over 4 railcars. Unfortunately most hypochlorite producers are reluctant to ship in rail cars because of time constraints due to the fact that high concentrations of hypochlorite start decomposing into chlorine gas the longer they sit without temperature controls. This is why most industrial strength bleach is shipped by truck. And it requires about 16 trucks to provide a similar amount of chlorine as a rail car of chlorine gas. Shipping chlorine by rail car is demonstrably safer (fewer release accidents per mile shipped) than shipping by truck. So has over all safety been increased? Another thing is that bleach and ammonia make a real nice improvised explosive as long as you can keep them apart until you want the explosion to happen. So what happens when an aqueous ammonia tank truck is deliberately drained into a sewer line while a short distance away a truck load of bleach is dropped into the same sewer? A large explosion that releases large quantities of chlorine gas is what happens. By all means, lets increase the numbers of truck loads of industrial strength bleach on the roads. IST Is Complex Going into the IST debate tomorrow, lets remember that IST is a complicated issue. Sure, if you eliminate tank cars full of chlorine, the facility becomes less of a target. But a facility is easier to secure than the open roads. Moving the more easily defended target into lager numbers of less lethal, but still dangerous targets, is of questionable efficacy. Making a decision to implement IST techniques is going to be one of the most difficult decisions that we require people to make, in the private sector or in government. There are lots of pros and cons to weigh. We need to make sure all parties have the necessary tools to make an effective and appropriate decision.

Reader Comments – 03-08-09 – IST Comments

We had a comment on each of two separate IST blog posts from last week posted to the blog on Sunday. Both were posted by Anonymous; though it is possible that they are from two different people using the Anonymous tag. Since both posts deal with IST I’ll add this to the ongoing series of blogs on this topic. Other blogs in the series include:

Writing IST Legislation Reader Comment – 02-24-09
What Standard to Apply for IST - Limits
What Standard to Apply for IST – Cost Estimates
SOCMA and IST

SOCMA List 

The first comment was appended to my blog about SOCMA and a list of their resources on IST. Anonymous asked: “Have you previously posted resources for those supporting IST?” and pointed towards AICHE as a potential source. I have not listed any specific information from either AICHE or the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) as I have not seen either organization weigh in on the IST debate. Both organizations have certainly got plenty of information on Inherently Safer Technology as a tool for process safety.

As I have pointed out on a number of occasions, there is no reputable member of the process chemical industry that has ever opposed IST as one of many process safety tools that should be routinely involved in the evaluation of chemical process safety. But that is not what the ‘IST debate’ is about.

To date the IST debate has been about different issues depending on the side of the debate. On one hand many advocacy groups correctly point out that there is no such thing as absolute security. This means that the only way to completely protect the innocent population around a chemical facility from the effects of a PIH release that would result from a successful terrorist attack is to remove the PIH chemical or greatly reduce the volume on site.

The chemical industry, on the other hand, argues that the government (and certainly not DHS in particular) does not have the expertise necessary to adequately evaluate what manufacturing process is used at a chemical facility. Add to those disparate stands a deep mistrust for the motives of the other side and you have a debate with little middle ground.

That is one of the things that I am trying to develop is a middle ground where both sides of the issue can meet and find something to agree upon. That is the only way that a workable political solution will be found. Now to answer the unasked question; why did I recommend an obviously anti-IST reference site but did not include a pro-IST site?

I have covered IST proponents (and will continue to do so) in the past, most notably the CAP Chemical Security 101 site which is probably the most effective pro-IST political document to date. The reason that I mentioned the SOCMA site is that they have not addressed their concerns to the wider public, relying instead on direct political action (that dirty word: lobbying) and preaching to the choir (the process chemical industry). To get a real debate going both sides need to know the arguments that the other is making.

IST Standards 

The second comment, appended to the first IST Standards blog, gets to the heart of the pro-IST argument. Anonymous makes the statement that: “Giving chemical management any kind of discretion (for anything) e.g., to determine what is acceptable in the market, is a poison pill for IST.”

The comment goes on to use the railroad re-routing issue (certainly a form of IST) as an example of how allowing market factors to dominate the decision process destroys any hope of increased safety for the public. This mistrust of the management of chemical facilities certainly has its roots in a long history of unsafe actions and cover-ups at many notorious chemical facilities.

Unfortunately, these actions are not limited to the past. One only has to look to the litany of incidents investigated by the Chemical Safety Board to see that there are many legitimate concerns about process safety at many facilities around the country. This country does run on a regulated market economy. This means that corporate managers have a two fold responsibility. First they have a responsibility to their owners (shareholders in most cases) to ensure a reasonable rate of return on their investments. They also have a responsibility to society (through the government) to protect the health and safety of their workers, neighbors and customers.

Both responsibilities are legally defined by the Federal government. One thing that is certain, any company that cannot turn a profit by manufacturing a given product will eventually get out of the business of selling that product or go out of business. There are certainly a number of IST techniques that are technically feasible, but that cannot be economically implemented. The cost of implementing and operating those safer techniques are too high to be able to sell the resulting products at a profit.

Likewise, there are techniques that can be implemented at a profitable return; though the business idealist would like to think that these would have already been implemented as part of sound business practice. Likely, most of the IST initiatives fall into the gray area in between; they are neither obviously profitable nor obviously unprofitable. This is the area that needs to be carefully addressed in any successful IST legislation. Management is going to have to be responsible for conducting this evaluation and economic factors must play an important part in that evaluation. But, in the words of Ronal Reagan, we need to ‘trust and verify’ the results of that evaluation.

 This is why any successful IST legislation must include provisions for submission of a detailed IST report by the facility management and a technical evaluation of that report. DHS does not have the manpower nor the process or business knowledge to conduct that evaluation. That is why there needs to be provisions for an outside, technically qualified, agency to evaluate those reports. This could be done under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences or even contracted out to some group like the CCPS. In any case, only a dispassionate educated review of both the technical and economic feasibility will help keep the reports honest.