An Ounce Of Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure
Some clichés ring more true than others and the one above resonates pretty loudly in these troubled times. We are all paying closer attention to the things we can do to protect our employees, our facilities, and our communities. Any type of facility that handles and uses chemicals has seen the need to be more vigilant and more cautious regarding those chemicals. Whether or not you were subject to the EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) and/or OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM), or were below threshold quantities or changed chemicals and processes, you still need to follow the basic precepts of the RMP General Duty Clause to provide that “ounce of protection.” The security of your facility and its processes has become an important additional element of chemical safety and handling.

Gordon Brookman, President of ERL, has completed the EPA-approved training in the Sandia Laboratory-developed “Risk Assessment Methodology for Water” (RAM-WSM). He was a participant in the first class of 16 to be trained in this methodology (outside of the “train the trainer” group of specialists) and received intensive instruction in this specific approach to vulnerability assessments developed by Sandia Labs and funded by the EPA for water utilities. While this methodology was developed specifically for water utilities, the approach is easily adapted to most industries that use chemicals and also to wastewater treatment plants.

Environmental Risk Limited (ERL) has assembled a team of experts to perform the diverse elements of an effective vulnerability assessment. ERL’s expertise is in process technology, chemical/hazardous materials control, and emergency response planning; we have extensive experience as consultants to water treatment plants, industrial facilities, and wastewater treatment plants. Our second team member is Interfor, Inc., a world leader in physical security assessment and antiterrorism strategies for business and government agencies. The third member of the team is CACI International, a world leader in information technology security. Together, we can provide the full range of services required to perform a vulnerability assessment. Our plan would be to work with you as a team. Our group of process, environmental, security, and IT specialists perform the actual vulnerability assessment, but for the endeavor to be most successful, it is vital that your core team have significant input.

RMP - Keeping and Using Your Chemicals Safely

This alert, dated October, 2001 was mailed to water/wastewater utilities and manufacturing facilities in the US:

In 1996, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted its Risk Management Program to improve public safety surrounding facilities with significant volumes of dangerous chemicals. It is important to remember the basic intent of this program - to prevent accidental chemical releases.

EPA's first step was to require facilities meeting certain chemical storage thresholds to evaluate the chemical storage and handling practices at the facility and to develop a written plan to help ensure best practices were being followed. A submittal which indicated a written plan had been developed, along with required site-specific information, was due to the EPA by June 21, 1999.

During the time that has passed since that submittal deadline, facilities have been obligated to implement the promises written into their plans - including for training, equipment upgrades, incident investigation, routine preventative maintenance and the like. EPA has been relatively quiet in its "enforcement" of those facilities that have submitted plans - often choosing to instead spend its efforts seeking out facilities that have done nothing in the way of developing an RMP.

An important milestone occurs in the year 2002 - three years following a facility's original RMP submittal date. All facilities that filed an RMP Submit* are obligated to conduct an audit of their present Risk Management Plan - to review whether it is being properly maintained and implemented, update staff and facility information, and most importantly to assess its actual value in maintaining safe handling of chemicals.

Environmental Risk Limited has significant experience in developing Risk Management Plans and has begun to work with facilities that are conducting these mandated audits. We encourage you to call to discuss your obligations, your options, and the fees associated with completing an RMP Audit.

Next RMP Deadline - Less Than One Year Away

This alert, dated August, 2001 was mailed to water/wastewater utilities in the US:

The USEPA and State Departments of Environmental Protection have indicated that compliance with the Risk Management Program (RMP) has been good and exceeded initial expectations. Most required facilities completed their initial filing. In some states the environmental agencies have concentrated on finding sources that have not filed their RMP information and assisted them in meeting RMP requirements. In many other locations, state agencies have been performing inspections of the facilities, reviewing their plans and questioning employees about the plan implementation.

However, the real test of RMP compliance is rapidly approaching. By June 21, 2002, all facilities that filed RMP submittals by the initial deadline must have audited their facilities to comply with RMP requirements. EPA, OSHA and state agency personnel will be gearing up to conduct RMP inspections aimed at evaluating your facility’s compliance status. The RMP program allows for self auditing and you should consider the following items:

Is facility management properly implementing their RMP program? Many facilities developed RMP plans to meet the initial June 21, 1999 deadline only to allow the plans to gather dust on the shelf. Their employees are not aware of the plan or its requirements. It is time to dust off your plan and get your employees trained for a compliance audit. Consider conducting a pre-audit to evaluate what needs to be fixed.

Has your staff been trained in RMP compliance and do they know what RMP is? A number of facilities ERL has audited have plans that are not being properly implemented as specified in the facility’s plan. In many cases employees are working correctly with their hazardous chemicals but are completely unaware that a RMP plan exists. They don’t know the jargon and will be “raw meat” when your facility is inspected for compliance.

Is your facility maintaining the appropriate records to document compliance? If you are like many people, you lack the time to keep appropriate records. However for RMP compliance you better have the right records and files available for your audit. In most instances the only way the regulatory agencies know whether you are properly complying with the program is to discuss the program with your employees, to review your records and observe how you operate your facility, store and use chemicals, and maintain your equipment.

Did you complete the actual RMP Plan document? It appears that some facilities filed the required electronic RMP Submittal, yet never actually prepared the full Plan to be used by the facility. The complete absence of this critical document could be a very serious situation.

If you have shrugged your shoulders or answered “NO” to any of these questions, maybe you should consider having an RMP professional evaluate your program. ERL has prepared more than 50 RMP plans for a variety of facilities nationwide. We have been conducting RMP training courses and audits for the past four years. We also conduct RMP audits for some of the largest worldwide insurance companies.

Contact Richard Atkins, P.E. (VP, Southeast Region) at (678) 867-7710, email: ratkins@erl.com or Gordon Brookman (President) at (800) 883-1568, email: gbrookman@erl.com

HOW'S YOUR RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN?

This letter, dated March 2001, went out to water/wastewater utilities in EPA Region II:

A couple of weeks ago, we got a call from one of our clients - a wastewater treatment plant in New York. They had just been visited by Region II EPA inspectors who were reviewing the facility's Risk Management Plan we had helped them develop.

During our phone call, the facility asked for a few more details on certain elements of the plan to help them round out their reply to Region II; they passed along EPA's general praise about their plan; and they mentioned that we should call such-and-such facility across the state.

So why the letter? A heads up, mostly. If you haven't thought about RMP since the filing deadline in June 1999, it's time you did.

We called one of the EPA inspectors and checked in on what's going on. It seems that Region II has been inspecting facilities in New York State (New Jersey has delegation in its state) that submitted RMP's - some by groups of chemical (e.g., chlorine or ammonia), some by industry, some by county. The core issues focus on the actual RMP documents (which, as you know, can be quite extensive) and implementation of the items in those documents ("Show me what you said you have - show me what you said you'd do" or "Let's take a look at your Emergency Response Plan."). The follow-up action by EPA can range from "suggested" improvements to official letters to the triggering of fines and Notices of Violation.

Bottom line - if you have doubts about how your Risk Management Program would fare during an inspection, now is the time to adjust what needs adjusting. This can include items such as updates to the document itself, schedules that were promised, changes in operations, or training sessions for personnel. If you did what you said you'd do, did you document it?

If you are not sure how your Plan would stand up to scrutiny by EPA, we would be pleased to talk with you about conducting an audit of your facility within the context of the Risk Management Program.

"Heads Up" to Avoid a Notice of Violation

This letter, dated March 2000, went out to Connecticut based water/wastewater utilities:

Recently, Michael Harder, Director of Permitting, Enforcement and Remediation Division of the CTDEP Bureau of Water Management sent a reminder letter to all wastewater permit holders. The letter stressed the importance of complete compliance with all monitoring requirements issued by the Department. While most permittees comply with this self-monitoring program, the CTDEP has compiled a short list of violations that have been observed during routine inspections. These violations include:

• Failure to take samples and perform the required monitoring;
• Failure to perform all the required analyses;
• Falsification of results;
• Failure to report all results, including any violations of your permit;
• Tampering with or making unauthorized changes to required monitoring equipment, or failure to report malfunctions of such equipment; and
• Failure to use the prescribed analytical procedures, including the correct detection levels.

Since the CTDEP is now allowing its field inspectors to issue a notice of violation (NOV) at the time of inspection, it is extremely important for all permittees to be in compliance with all monitoring requirements. ERL strongly encourages you to review your current monitoring procedures and record keeping practices (including for General Permits!) Once a NOV is issued, it becomes a permanent blemish on the permittee's record.