At approximately 7:30 a.m. on November 2, 2007, a technician in building Number II was conducting weld-penetration tests with a chemical solution containing 95-percent ethyl nitric acid (70-percent concentration). An old container of the solution in a storage can that had been stored on a bottom shelf fell and broke when the lower shelf in…...
At approximately 9:30 a.m. on April 24, 2019, an employee was receiving a chemical. The vendor connected the nitric acid to the chlorine tank. Because it was mislabeled, it caused a reaction with a cloud that affected seven (7) other employees…. Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a...
Respondent is the owner and operator of a pork manufacturing and supply business. As reported in the Respondent’s risk management plan, anhydrous ammonia, Chemical Abstract Service (“CAS”) Number 7664-41-7, is used at the Facility to cool and freeze its pork products. The Facility’s freezing and cooling system holds 201,852 pounds of anhydrous ammonia. On August…...
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s Gulf of America Region identified a potential risk involving compressed gas cylinders across the Outer Continental Shelf in 2024 and 2025. During this period, multiple explosions were reported to the bureau and were linked to cylinder failures. Several of the explosions were severe, causing injuries and damage to…...
NOTE: OSHA would allow the “minor servicing exception” in this scenario, although the UK HSE does not. A tissue manufacturing company has been fined after an employee, 24, was seriously injured while clearing a machine blockage at its factory. During the manufacturing process, a tissue blockage occurred in the rollers of the machine, and the…...
With this week’s event in Japan, where the roofs of the flammable liquid storage tanks were blown off, I shared OSHA’s “emergency venting” requirements to explain why the roofs were off the tanks, which sparked a lot of sidebar discussions. Sizing these emergency venting options is quite easy, as I explain in this article with…...
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As I say each year, the International Fire Code (IFC) is being used in 42 states, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico. This code, dating all the way back to 1993 when I began my career in chemical processing, has always required much of what we apply in OSHA PSM/EPA RMP to processes that operate FAR…...
My friend and one hell of a fine process safety guru in NH3 refrigeration, Brian Chapin, is always sharing this stuff with me. This is another great example of how correlation ≠ does not cause causation. Of course, this is the extreme, but I will bet many of us have seen correlation turn into causation…...
Yes, both terms essentially mean the same thing, but they refer to very different hazardous atmospheres. LEL, or Lower Explosive Limit, applies to gases and Vapors. MEC, which is Minimum Explosive Concentration, deals with Combustible Dusts. Here are some other differences:… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a...
I used AI, specifically Gemini Plus and Super Grok, to create this image from an OSHA Case File, and I was impressed. Now the image is going to be shocking, but this is a very good depiction of what was described in the case file. And I’ll bet a burger and a beer that this…...
I was recently involved with an organization that had an issue with overpressuring a 330-gallon plastic tote during their evacuation of their HHC/EHS for process work. So we had a nice discussion about the DIFFERENCE between “draining” and “venting”. The chemical in question is normally a “gas” but is stored as a liquid under pressure…....
