No it is not a spongy football for kids! NURF is the acronym for “Normally Unoccupied and Remote Facility”. It is a term used in OSHA’s PSM standard and NURFs are EXEMPTED from complying with OSHA’s PSM standard; however, EPA’s RMP rule does NOT have a NURF exemption so be careful – EPA manages this type of exemption via their varying RMP Program Levels. With all the recent OSHA activity regarding PSM we have seen a resurgence in facilities considering themselves to be a NURF, and this is what I want to discuss.
OSHA defines a NURF as: (emphasis is added by me)
a facility which is operated, maintained or serviced by employees who visit the facility only periodically to check its operation and to perform necessary operating or maintenance tasks. No employees are permanently stationed at the facility. Facilities meeting this definition are not contiguous with, and must be geographically remote from all other buildings, processes or persons.
As we can see, OSHA set the bar fairly high of a facility/process to meet the definition of an NURF. Their rationale, as stated in the PSM Preamble was…
that these facilities did not have any employees present on a regular basis, i.e., a daily shift. Rather, employees only periodically visited the facility to check the operation and perform maintenance. OSHA believed that the likelihood of an uncontrolled release injuring or killing employees was effectively reduced by the isolation of the process from employees.
OSHA has stated that a facility/process MUST be BOTH
- “normally unoccupied” AND
- “remote”
for the process/facility to be exempt from the PSM standard.
Recently we have heard of facilities attempting to redefine their PSM-covered process as an NURF, with ONLY one of these two requirements being met. OSHA has even quantified “normally unoccupied” in a 2005 LOI “Evaluation of scenarios regarding PSM requirements related to normally unoccupied remote facilities and natural gas processing plants (gas plant)”. As for a process/facility being “remote”, OSHA has said these are NOT contiguous with, and must be geographically remote from all other buildings, processes or persons.
And to top it off, we have to look at OSHA’s definition of a “process”…
any activity involving a highly hazardous chemical including any use, storage, manufacturing, handling, or the on-site movement of such chemicals, or a combination of these activities. For purposes of this definition, any group of vessels which are interconnected and separate vessels which are located such that a highly hazardous chemical could be involved in a potential release shall be considered a single process.
In several cases, we have seen facilities attempt to justify that a portion of their PSM covered “process” is NURF, usually the bulk storage tank, and such the process is exempted under the NURF exemption. However, the bulk tank only constitutes a small segment of the covered “process” and the other end of the covered “process” is normally OCCUPIED and it is in no-way “remote”. For the process to be considered a NURF then the entire battery limits of the process MUST be BOTH “normally unoccupied” AND “remote” such that if there was an incident with the HHC, employees AND contractors would not be impacted by the incident.
In a 1998 LOI OSHA sort of quantified “normally unoccupied”…
Scenario: The following water treatment plant consists of two 2 million gallon water tanks, a valve/instrument house, and a chlorine building. No workers are stationed at this site. Workers are dispatched from the waste water treatment facility which is about 4 miles away from the water treatment plant. They spend an average of 1.5 man hours per day checking the water treatment plant; an additional 2.5 man hours once a week; and an additional 6.5 hours once a month at the plant.
The chlorine building was built in 1995 and consists of a cylinder room, a scrubber room, an emergency generator room, and a utility/storage room. The cylinder room is equipped with monitors that activate remote alarms and a ventilation system which ducts chlorine gas to the adjoining scrubber tank, which neutralizes the gas. The scrubber system is sized to capture and neutralize a full cylinder. One ton chlorine cylinders are used at the water treatment plant. The cylinder room would remain under negative pressure in the event of a chlorine leak.
There are no conveniences for a permanent presence at this site, such as vending machines or bathroom facilities.
Question: Based on this description, would this site be considered a normally unoccupied remote facility under the PSM regulation?
Reply: The water treatment plant described in the scenario above would be considered a normally unoccupied remote facility which would be excepted from PSM Standard coverage as provided under paragraph 1910.119(a)(2).
As we can see, for anyone to claim the NURF exemption for a covered process or an entire facility, the bar is set fairly high. Also please do not loose site of the fact that EPA does NOT have a NURF exemption. Recently we came across a facility that had exempted their process based on OSHA’s NURF exemption. But when we began to look at their RMP we noticed that the process was NOT eligible for a Program Level 1 RMP because of its close proximity to a public receptor just off site. The facility had reported their process as a RMP Program Level 2 since they had exempted the process from PSM coverage using the NURF exemption. I had to challenge this rationale as how does a facility claim the process is a NURF when BOTH the worst-case and alternative case release scenarios impact workers on site; granted it is NOT the workers assigned to the process, but none the less they are company employees. Also due to the layout of the process within the facility boundaries this process’s WCS reached a public receptor, making the point that the process was not all that “remote” to begin with. So in this case the facility had documentation on hand that dispelled the idea that this process was “remote”. The process also was NOT normally unoccupied, in such that workers were working in, on and adjacent to the process on a 24-7 basis. This was confirmed using their most recent PHA and facility siting analysis. The facility had to resubmit their RMP as a Program Level 3 and is working to cover their bulk tank farm within their PSM program.