Was poor area classification to blame for explosion at Veolia ES Technical Solutions Hazardous Waste Facility?
July 21, 2010, Washington DC- The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has come out with its investigation report on the 2009 explosion and fire at the Veolia ES Technical Solutions L.L.C. facility in West Carrollton, Ohio. It calls on the waste management industry the industry to improve safety standards covering
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hazardous waste processing, handling, and storage facilities. The Board also recommended that fire protection codes be revised to require companies to determine safe distances between occupied buildings and potentially hazardous areas.
This is because in the accident, flammable and explosive vapors of a solvent Tetrahydrafuran (THF) leaked and traveled some distance away from the processing area to an area that apparently was not classified as a hazardous area. These flammable vapors found anignition source and exploded, devastating the facility and the neighborhood too.
Read the entire report here (given below).
The accident occurred on May 4, 2009, when flammable vapor was released from a waste recycling process, ignited, and violently exploded. The blast seriously injured two workers and damaged 20 nearby residences and five businesses. CSB investigators found that the north wall of the lab and operations building – where the victims were injured – was less than 30 feet from the waste recycling processing area where the flammable vapor was released.
CSB Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso said, “This accident should not have happened. Our report notes that OSHA cited the company for inadequate attention to process safety management practices in the handling of flammable liquids. But in case of an accident, I believe it is absolutely critical that buildings at chemical facilities be sited safe distances from process equipment to maximize the safety of workers. We are making recommendations that would help ensure that operating areas with occupied buildings such as control rooms be sufficiently separated from process areas containing flammable liquids and gases that have the potential to explode.”
The Board issued a recommendation to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which develops codes and standards for industry, urging NFPA to require companies to perform engineering analyses to determine safe separation distances between buildings occupied by administrative and other personnel not essential to process operations, and buildings housing the potentially hazardous process equipment.
The Board also revised a previous recommendation to the Environmental Technology Council, a hazardous waste industry trade group, to petition the NFPA to develop a standard specific to hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities. This would include guidance on reducing the likelihood of fires, explosions, and releases of hazardous waste.
Dr. Moure noted, “The Environmental Technology Council did not respond adequately to our 2007 recommendation, which we issued following an explosion and massive fire at the Environmental Quality hazardous waste facility in Apex, North Carolina, to work for more stringent standards in the hazardous waste industry. I strongly urge the industry to act now. These facilities, by their nature, contain wide varieties of flammable and toxic materials that can cause significant injury to workers and threaten the well being of nearby communities. Facility owners and operators need stricter technical requirements to improve the safety of life and property.”
The report notes that after a normal run of the tetrahydrafuran (THF) solvent recovery process at the Veolia facility, the unit operator began a routine shutdown. Completing the process required blowing nitrogen back through the circulation piping to clean it, prior to closing valves.
CSB lead investigator Johnnie Banks said, “At the time of the shutdown, witnesses reported hearing the sound of a sudden, loud vapor release and smelling a very strong odor of THF solvent which knocked several employees to their knees. It was a matter of just a couple of minutes until the highly flammable vapor ignited.”
The vapor drifted to the laboratory and operations building and found an ignition source inside the building. A worker in the control room reported being enveloped in a fireball that went through the building. The first explosion knocked over a bank of lockers, severely injuring an employee and pinning him underneath.
Because of the extensive fire damage, the CSB was unable to conclusively determine the exact initiating event for the vapor release, concluding one of two possible scenarios likely occurred. In the first scenario, air may have been drawn into a tank containing THF residue and peroxides, causing increased pressure in the tank and forcing flammable vapor from the tank to escape through a manway cover or a vacuum breaker.
In the second possible scenario, CSB investigators believe a line hose, intended to send pressurized nitrogen into a different tank, may have instead been connected to a tank containing unprocessed, flammable liquid. When the nitrogen was applied, it forced flammable vapor out through the tank vent. In either scenario, the vapor drifted to the operations building and ignited, causing the injuries.
In addition to issuing recommendations to NFPA and the hazardous waste industry, the Board also issued recommendations to Veolia, which is rebuilding the plant. The CSB called on the company to restrict occupancy in buildings in close proximity to the operating plant to personnel trained in the safe operation and orderly shutdown of the plant. The Board also called on the Center for Chemical Process Safety, a division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, to revise control room siting guidelines to address the characteristics of all Class 1B flammable liquids.
A Practical Guide to Hazardous Area Classification
Miami-FL, Feb 16, 2010- If you are looking for a practical guide to Hazardous Area Classification, then look no further.There is a new ebook in a flip page format (just looks like a real book), that has all the essential information that you need to know about area classification.
As you must have known by now, area classification is very important to industries and facilities that handle, store or otherwise process hazardous (flammable liquids and vapors). Also, if a facility is handling large amounts of dusts (like grain dust or coal dust), then it needs to be classified also as a hazardous area, with the code that is applicable to dusts. This classification can be sometimes very intimidating and even confusing, what with the plethora of varying standards and codes. The IEC system and the North American (NEC) systems are covered for vapors, gases, as well as dusts. Actual real life area classification drawings are provided, that really area a help, as compared to the same stale figures that are repeated in all publications.
This guide is a fast start to your area classification exercise. It is always a good safety practice to review the hazardous area classification of an industrial facility, every few years, due to the changes, modifications in equipment or new layouts that have now become a permanent development in most plants. If the area classification was done ages ago, then it is better to review it once again, to confirm that the old classification still holds, or to change it if necessary.
This guide provides a very concise overview and even provides a step by step procedure that was followed while doing an area classification. Definitely a must have book for understanding area classification.
Also, since a trial version is available, you can download and see for yourself immediately. Click here to get it.
Note that you will require a DNL reader to view it (similar to Adobe reader but much better), you can get it from here.
Lax about safety standards in your plant? Get ready to pay heavy fines
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 The Justic Department has reportedly fined MFG Chemical, Inc. $270,000 for a toxic release on April 12, 2004 of extremely hazardous chemicals at the company’s Dalton, Ga., plant.
The toxic release resulted from a runaway reaction at the plant leading to an extreme increase in temperature and causing an explosion that released toxic gases to the atmosphere.
The surrounding community within a half mile radius of the MFG plant was evacuated. Several hundred people, some of which were emergency responders, were treated for exposure at the local hospital. One-half mile of vegetation south of the MFG plant was also burned and much of the aquatic life was killed throughout several miles of surrounding creeks.
The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleges that MFG failed to adhere to the Clean Air Act’s general duty of care provision. The general duty of care requirement obligates companies handling extremely hazardous substances to take preventative measures to identify the risks involved and to reduce the risks by providing layers of protection on their equipment such as high temperature alarms, automatic feed shut off mechanisms, adequate pressure relief systems and a vapor release recovery and containment system. The complaint alleges MFG failed to identify the risk of a runaway reaction through its failure to calculate the temperature/time profile and to have appropriate layers of protection in place prior to the incident.
MFG has implemented measures to address conditions at the plant contributing to the explosion and release, including halting the use of allyl alcohol and hiring an experienced safety engineer to oversee its compliance with its Clean Air Act obligations. MFG also paid for the clean up of surrounding contaminated creeks.
Copies of the stipulation of settlement are available on the Department of Justice Web site at: http://www.usdoj.gov/enrd/Consent_Decrees.html
