Page 80 - Occupational Health & Safety, July 2018

HAZMAT
Pre-Incident Planning for Hazmat Emergencies
One of the CSB’s recommendations to FEMA following the explosion in West, Texas, was to fund training for fire departments on pre-incident planning for fires at facilities storing fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate.
BY JERRY LAWS
Two years ago, on July 15, 2016, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) added Emer- gency Planning and Response to its list of “Most Wanted Safety Improvements,” based on the board’s conclusion that inadequate or poor emergency planning or response has been a recurring finding in CSB’s investigations.
The board announced then that Board Member Manuel “Manny” Ehrlich would serve as the cham- pion for the issue and quoted his reason: “As a 50-year veteran of the chemical industry, I know far too well the importance of a robust emergency response pro- gram. I have responded to and investigated numerous chemical incidents in my career and look forward to sharing the important safety information in CSB re- ports and safety videos.”
In an AIHce EXP 2018 presentation, Bob Camp- bell, PE, president and CEO of Alliance Solutions Group, Inc. (https://www.asg-inc.org/, Newport News, Va.), discussed the CSB’s action and the need for pre- incident planning in order to prevent hazardous mate- rials calamities. He discussed several major incidents, including the West, Texas, ammonium nitrate fire and explosion in 2013 and an April 2014 derailment in Lynchburg, Va., of a train transporting crude oil.
The NFPA 1620 standard, Recommended Practice for Pre-Incident Planning, updated in 2015, figured prominently in Campbell’s presentation. It is intended to help responders manage emergencies effectively so that occupants and response personnel are protected. As he explained, pre-incident planning is necessary
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because there are gaps and overlaps in current regu- lations affecting hazmat transportation and storage, including regulations from OSHA, EPA, DOT, and DHS. There are also industry consensus standards to consider.
Campbell described pre-incident planning as a collaborative process that involves data collection, plan preparation, documentation, distribution, train- ing, and subsequent plan revisions. His list of pre-in- cident planning elements included these:
■ physical/site characteristics
■ occupant considerations, including any on-site emergency organization
■ engagement of the whole community
■ water supplies and fire protection systems
■ hazardous materials, including transient
hazmats, such as hazmats in railcars and in pipelines
■ emergency operations
His recommended best practices for preparing
for and responding to hazardous materials emergen- cies included developing pre-incident action plans; unified command; and making use of evacuation maps and the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Ma- terials Safety Administration’s Emergency Response Guidebook, which is distributed free of charge to emergency responders through state emergency management coordinators.
Pre-incident planning can prevent a crisis from becoming a disaster, Campbell stressed.
Pre-Incident Planning Cited in
CSB’s West Recommendations
The CSB’s final report on the West fire and explosion contained a total of 19 recommendations, including four to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. One of these asked FEMA to provide competitive funding for training regional, state, and local fire de- partments—both career and volunteer—on how to respond to fires at facilities storing fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate, or FGAN. Another recommen- dation listed objectives this training should address:
■ previous FGAN fires and explosion and les- sons learned from them
■ hazards posed by other materials and chemi- cals stored near FGAN, including incompatibilities of FGAN with those materials and chemicals
■ pre-incident planning for fires involving FGAN
■ on-scene emergency response and decision www.ohsonline.com
U.S. CHEMICAL SAFETY BOARD