An odor incident at the Gallipolis Water Treatment Plant was triggered by the accidental mixing of two treatment chemicals during a delivery. The incident was isolated entirely to the plant, and officials confirmed there was no threat to the public water supply or drinking water. Incident Breakdown… Membership Required You must be a member to...
In the context of a Safety Management System (SMS), auditing is the systematic, independent, and documented process for obtaining objective evidence and evaluating it against established criteria to determine the extent to which requirements are fulfilled. I recently had a lengthy discussion with the executive team regarding my PSM/RMP audits over the years. These men…...
A ship’s engineer sustained cold burns to 10–13% of his body surface after liquid propane was released without warning in the early hours of 1 November 2018 during loading operations. A flammable gas cloud could have resulted in a catastrophic explosion if ignited. The worker was treated at the hospital and subsequently repatriated to Russia,…...
We get so much slack when we push Hydrostatic Pressure/Leak Testing vs. Pneumatic testing. So many think that pneumatic is easier and cheaper, when in reality it is NOT. In fact, the B31 series makes it clear that HYDROSTATIC is the first choice for pressure and leak testing. The code makes it clear that pneumatic…...
OSHA, IFC, and NFPA have “separation distance” requirements for flammable liquid storage tanks. These requirements have been around longer than I have been dealing with hazardous materials and process safety, and yet we always come across some wildly out of “compliance” arrangements of these flammable liquid tanks. using OSHA’s Flammable Liquid Standard 1910.106 we can…...
The Fire Chief was talking about the phase change occurring inside the MMA tank. These are the critical temps for that to happen…. Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member? Log in here...
So I went back in time using Google Earth, and the last clear image was on June 1, 1994, and the three (3) tanks were present. Now, I have no idea if they were being used for MMA at that time. But the three (3) tanks were present, along with the larger tank next to…...
Following the 2012 Chevron Refinery Fire, California created an Interagency Refinery Task Force (IRTF) headed by CalEPA, with participation from the Department of Industrial Relations and 11 other federal, state, and local agencies and departments. The purpose of Program 4 is to prevent major incidents at petroleum refineries to protect the health and safety of…...
Not sure why “Over Pressure” events get all the attention. It is my belief that we destroy more vessels each year due to a vacuum than we do with over-pressure events. Of course, overpressure events have more layers of protection because they pose far greater risks. In my career, I have seen these failures occur…...
Storing Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) requires a delicate engineering balance. Because it is both a Class IB Flammable Liquid and a Class 2 Unstable Reactive, the storage design must simultaneously mitigate the vapor-fire hazard while actively feeding the chemical inhibitor to prevent thermal runaway. When evaluating bulk storage tanks from a Process Safety Management (PSM) perspective,…...
For those curious, it will take around 27 pounds of Phenothiazine (PTZ) to successfully QUENCH the reaction, or, as some may call it, “short-stopping”. But these events usually occur in a “process vessel” that has an agitator. These tanks in CA do NOT appear to have agitators; however, they may be able to “mix” the…...
We keep hearing all these different temps from the media and OCFA. I am pretty sure they are both using Farenheit and Celsuis interchangably in their remarks and this can be confusing as heck. I just heard a media update state that “50 degrees is the happy place” for MMA. 50°F is the Flash Point…...
