Posts Tagged ‘Accidents’
Will Obama Adminsitration Get Smackdown From Chemical Safety Board?
The disaster in West, Texas has, at least for the moment, altered the regulatory radar concerning hazardous materials and emergency planning. Trying to take advantage of that fact is The US Chemical Safety Board, an independent agency that seems to be using the incident to press for long sought safety upgrades in several industries.
The USCSB investigates industrial accidents and issues recommendations to regulators, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA, as well as companies, states and local authorities, but it lacks the authority to force regulators or companies to make changes on its own.
On July 25th the Board is due to hold a meeting where it's threatening to label the Administration's inaction on regs for combustible dust as "unacceptable" and raise the stakes by categorizing the regs as "Most Wanted" – the first time that's ever happened in the 30-something history of he board. That might sound like weak tea to you and I but it's pretty strong language coming from this group.
The safety board “has made a number of recommendations to OSHA over the years on life-threatening issues, and OSHA hasn’t really responded through the regulatory process,” Matt Shudtz, a senior policy analyst for the Center for Progressive Reform, said in an interview.
Four of the seven recommendations on next week’s agenda would apply to combustible dust, which caused three major industrial explosions in 2003, killing 14. OSHA has been considering a rule to regulate these facilities since 2009, and hasn’t yet submitted even its initial proposal to the White House for review.
Ammonium nitrate, which fueled the West explosion, is now regulated by local, state and federal agencies in a “patchwork that has many large holes,” board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso said at a Senate hearing last month. However, regulating that chemical isn’t on the agenda next week: The investigation into that incident continues, and the board hasn’t made any recommendations to include on a ‘most wanted’ list, according to Hillary Cohen, an spokeswoman for the board.
Grassroots groups should do their own investigations into local emergency planning committees mandated by law and see how well their County is doing. As Channel 8 Bret Shipp found out, Ellis County, home to some of the most toxic industries in North Texas, has fallen down on the job, but it wouldn't surprise us to learn that they're in the majority.
“Scant Oversight and Lax Reporting” Doom Federal Right-to-Know Regs
Reuters examines the almost 30-year old Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act and finds that, depending on what state you live in, the information that's supposed to be provided to the public is either semi-correct, or full of holes you can drive tanker trucks through.
One of the provisions of the Act is supposed to be an annual inventory of all hazardous chemicals on site at a particular facility. Some 500,000 different substances are covered under the regs and should be accounted for…
But facilities across the country often misidentify these chemicals or their location, and sometimes fail to report the existence of the substances altogether. And except for a handful of states, neither federal nor local authorities are auditing the reports for errors.
As was demonstrated in West, recently, it's important to know what hazardous materials are stored where and in what quantity. Not only for the sake of surrounding residents, but for the first responders coming to their aid in any kind of accident or incident. Reuters cites several examples where firefighters showed-up and were injured on the scene when they didn't know a hazardous chemical was on-site.
A recent Congressional study estimated 60 deaths, more than 1,300 injuries and more than $1.6 billion in onsite and off-site damages caused by accidents at facilities storing 140 Tier II chemicals that have been deemed most dangerous by the EPA.
These numbers also don't include accidents at oil and gas industry sites, often exempt from the same reporting requirements as other industries. It's another reason why Dallas should include a complete, water-proof disclosure provision in any new gas drilling ordinance its Council passes.