EO 13650 §6(a) RFI – EPA Improvements

This is another in a series of posts addressing the recent request for information (RFI) from the EO 13650 Working Group. That RFI addressed requirements in §6(a) of the Improving Chemical Safety and Security Executive Order (EO 13650) for the Working Group to “develop options for improved chemical facility safety and security that identify improvements to existing risk management practices through agency programs, private sector initiatives, Government guidance, outreach, standards, and regulations”. Earlier posts in the series include:

EO 13650: Another Request for Input

EO 13650 §6(a) RFI – Areas Covered

EO 13650 §6(a) RFI – CFATS Improvements

EPA Accomplishments

The RFI addresses EPA accomplishments in chemical safety regulation in two principal areas; Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) and their Risk Management Program (RMP).

At the community level EPCRA ensures that local fire departments, the agency most likely to respond to chemical emergencies, get the needed information to properly respond to a chemical emergency. The RFI notes (pg 4): “Local fire departments receive this information and should [emphasis added] use it to understand the chemical present at facilities in their community and what to do to respond to an accident at the facility.” The EPA has no legal authority to influence or evaluate the community planning process.

The RFI also addresses the availability of the chemical safety information for the public, stating that: “Additionally, the information about chemicals in the community is made available to the public.” This is technically true, but since 9-11 this information, while available at ‘local’ EPA reading centers, is not available from the EPA on the internet. Many community activist organizations, however, have stepped in and placed the information on their web sites.

The RMP program addresses chemical process safety with the emphasis on preventing process upsets or accidents from affecting the local public. The RFI notes that: “EPA conducts chemical plant safety inspection and enforcement efforts at covered facilities based upon this rule.” It does not address, however, how frequently such inspections are actually done with the limited inspection staff available to the EPA or its allied State agencies.

Suggested Areas for Improvements

EPA has identified 7 categories of areas for improvement (pgs 4-5):

• Updating the list of regulated substances;

• Exploring options for improving coverage of reactive substances, reactivity hazards, and explosive chemical hazards;

• Expanding inspector training to include best practices and improve chemical safety beyond regulatory requirements;

• Further enhancing EPA software tools for emergency responders (e.g., the suite of software products called Computer Aided Management of Emergency Operations (CAMEO));

• Evaluating the implementation of best practices and lessons learned such as the “safety case” regulatory model to reduce risk in complex industrial processes;

• Identifying ways to use safer alternatives as mechanisms to reduce chemical risk; and

• Evaluating opportunities for increasing worker involvement and labor-management cooperation in hazard investigations.

Only one of these categories applies to the EPCRA program; the improvements to CAMEO. All of the remainder deal with RMP issues. Part of the reason for that is that Federal agencies are greatly restricted in the requirements that they can place on State and local agencies for fear of establishing ‘unfunded mandates’ that the local jurisdictions cannot afford to implement.

One area that both EPA programs fail to address is the issue of chemical ‘accidents’ caused by deliberate actions. While DHS clearly has the responsibility of preventing terrorist attacks on facilities, that responsibility does not currently extend to preventing actions by disgruntled employees or contractors. Additionally, the response to or mitigation of the consequences of chemical releases from such incidents is not within the area of expertise found within DHS. The extent of the area affected by a deliberate release can be much greater than the current ‘worst case scenario’ planning required under EPCRA.

Some Suggestions

While the CSB has been calling for EPA to cover reactive chemical hazards for more than a decade now, there is no clear consensus of how the agency is supposed to define such potential hazards, much less regulate them. Probably the most hazardous of these reactions, as a general class, are the self-accelerating decomposition reactions (SADR). If EPA were to initially restrict itself to requiring chemical manufacturing facilities to identify potential SADR reactions and methods to limit reaching the critical process upsets (usually temperature) that start such reactions, it will have gone a long way to reducing community risk from reactivity hazards.

The biggest potential improvement to EPCRA (short or regulating the planning activities of State and local agencies which clearly will not happen) would be to have an active requirement for covered facilities to document response drill activities that include local emergency response personnel. That way the regulatory onus will be placed on the facilities that EPA can regulate.

To get around the problem of a too small inspection force (Congressional action would be needed to significantly expand it, and Congressional action is beyond the scope of the President’s EO) the EPA could require RMP covered facilities to submit an annual report on their drill activities in support of the EPCRA drill activity I’ve described above. This would not necessarily ensure the quality of such drills, but at least an effort would be made at most covered facilities.

Public Comments

This is a reminder that the whole purpose of this RFI is to get public feedback on these proposed ideas. The RFI requests the public to respond to these specific proposals for areas of improvement. That response should address the following (pg 9):

• Examples of where implementation of the same or similar options has been successful;

• Information or data that would characterize the positive impacts the options might have, including additional benefits;

• Potential limitations or unintended consequences of the options described;

• Methods for implementing the options, including methods for potentially increasing benefits or reducing costs; or

• Alternatives to the options that could achieve substantially the same result.

Comments need to be submitted by March 31^st, 2014. They may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulatons.gov; Docket #OSHA-2013-0026). This Docket is now operational.

Ammonium Nitrate Dangers

Since the explosion last month in West, TX there has been an awful lot of talk in the press (and amongst politicians) about the dangers associated with ammonium nitrate (See Twitter @Chemicalsafetyboard for the most comprehensive set of links to such news reports). The devastation in West, TX notwithstanding, ammonium nitrate fertilizer is not an explosive; to become an explosive it must be adulterated with other flammable/combustible material.

Ammonium Nitrate Explosives

Ammonium nitrate the explosive is a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, more commonly referred to in the industry as ANFO. The ammonium nitrate explosive used in the attack in Oklahoma City was a mixture of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and racing fuel. The ammonium nitrate contributes two things to this ‘explosive’ mixture. First it is an oxidizer, upon decomposition (from heating for example) it produces oxygen gas which makes other flammable things burn faster. Secondly it increases the burnable surface area of the organic liquid by distributing it (absorbing it) throughout its bulk placing it in close proximity to the oxygen produced by decomposition. This greatly increases the speed of burning turning a flammable/combustible liquid into an explosive.

Other oxidizers can do the same thing. I mentioned in an earlier blog post ‘sugar bombs’ made by mixing either potassium chlorate or sodium chlorate with sugar. Again, the oxidizer provides both a matrix and an oxygen source for the explosive.

West Explosion

As far as we know (and we may never know because of the bureaucratic infighting between ATF and the Chemical Safety Board; mostly on the ATF side from what we have heard in the news) no one deliberately added any combustible/flammable liquids in the stored ammonium nitrate at West Fertilizer. There may have been other combustible organic material in the area (seeds, wood construction building, wood constructed storage bins, etc) that the oxidative properties of the ammonium nitrate turned into explosives. There was after-all something burning in the area and oxidizers don’t really burn.

Self Accelerating Decomposition Reaction

Nearly all molecules, if heated to a high enough temperature, will decompose into small molecules and/or atoms. There is a class of molecules, however, that when they begin decomposing produce heat that will accelerate the decomposition process through a self-accelerating decomposition reaction (SADR). Ammonium nitrate is one of these molecules.

Since gasses are typically the end product of these SADRs a great deal of pressure can build-up during the decomposition process if the material is in a confined space, such as a container. Since heat has a tendency to weaken the strength of the confining material, these pressure buildups from SADRs frequently result in the violently catastrophic failure of the container. That looks to most people like an explosion.

In large bulk storage of ammonium nitrate the material itself may act as the container, particularly if it is in a structured storage situation like bins. There are even reports that something falling onto a large bulk of heated ammonium nitrate may be enough to cause this type of pressure explosion.

Comparative Risks

So, ammonium nitrate is not an explosive, it is an oxidizer. As with other oxidizers you keep it away from combustible materials and you generally do not have any problems. This is clearly reflected in the large amounts of this material that are handled every day in this country in very large quantities and the very small number of explosive incidents that do occur.

To put this in perspective, let’s look at some other readily available chemicals that people handle every day that have the potential for causing explosions much larger than the one in West Texas. Gasoline for instance; under the proper circumstances the fumes from a gasoline spill may form just the right fuel air mixture to become a deadly fuel-air explosive (see the 2009 Catano Oil Refinery explosion in Puerto Rico or the 2013 PEMEX refinery explosion). Under the proper circumstances the amount of fuel in a gasoline tanker truck could easily be enough to produce an explosion comparable to West Fertilizer. These trucks drive major city streets every day.

Natural gas is another flammable, a gas this time instead of a liquid, that under the proper circumstances can produce a devastating explosion. The Chemical Safety Board has investigated a number of these (see The Little General Store) as has the NTSB (see San Bruno). Again, under the proper circumstances a significant, but hardly catastrophic, pipeline leak can also produce an explosion comparable to West Fertilizer. These pipelines run through neighborhoods.

None of this decreases the problems seen in the West Fertilizer situation. Neither the EPA nor OSHA has taken any actions on regulating SADR type situations (See T-2 Labs Explosion) as strongly recommended by the TSB. Congress has done nothing to provide support to the CSB in this matter and continues to under-fund and under-staff the agency.

Maybe the West Fertilizer explosion and all of its publicity will help change this situation. Probably not.