At 8:30 a.m. on June 22, 2020, Employees #1, 25, and #2, 47, employed by a piping company, were working on the roof of a three-story food processing company. They were adding new pipe to two (2) new, already installed, 14-inch diameter chilled water lines. The chilled water lines had been pressure-tested with nitrogen…. Membership...
A petrochemical plant has been fined after ethylene, a flammable gas was released from a cracked pipe at the Ethylene Plant. On May 2, 2017, approximately 17 tons of ethylene were released from the pipe. This leak precipitated the formation of a flammable gas cloud of around 2,295,453 cubic ft. The gas cloud was seen…...
This past January 2021, The Chlorine Institute issued Edition 7 of their Pamphlet 65 – Personal Protective Equipment for Chlor-Alkali Chemicals (which is available for FREE). This is a MUST have document for those who have exposures to: CHLORINE SODIUM AND POTASSIUM HYDROXIDE (10 – 50 WT %) SODIUM HYPOCHLORITE (3 – 20 WT %)…...
Chlorine is a “toxic gas” and as such it has special requirements in the IFC as well as the IMC. I have written about how we design our gas cabinets, gas rooms, enclosures, and storage areas based on the IFC Chapter 50 and 60 requirements. In this article, I will address the IMC requirements which…...
I have several chlorine projects going on and a couple of them are being installed by the same contractor, one of the best contractors in the chemical industry (I wish I could name them by my CA prevents me from listing them as a client or supporter!). They used the pandemic to get everything installed…...
This redneck from western KY can understand one of the most fundamental requirements from ASME B31 standards… ONLY certified welders can make the welds AND each weld MUST be IDENTIFIED as to who made the weld(s)! Now ASME gives us options for meeting the “identification” requirements (e.g., stamping or Isometric Drawings). Still, these two requirements…...
During my “lost years” early in my college days (i.e. before I discovered firefighting and OSH) I built swimming pools during the summers. That job required a lot of piping work, which I got pretty good at, at least I thought I had until I got into my first Chlorine (Cl2) process as a safety…...
This was buried in my archives by mistake until a member found it while digging through all the PowerPoint presentations. It is from way back in 2008 when I was heavily involved in Water Treatment Plants and their use of Chlorine and the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS) roll-out. The presentation was put together for…...
Monika Chrzaszcz, U.S. EPA, Region 5, presented at this years MI Safety Conference on the matters of Anhydrous Ammonia and how the chemical impacts EPCRA and RMP. Her presentation points out some of the RMP amendments that are in place now and those coming, as well as EPCRA Tier II reporting and release reporting…. Membership...
NFPA 499, Recommended Practice for the Classification of Combustible Dusts and of Hazardous (Classified) Locations for Electrical Installations in Chemical Process Areas was updated for 2021 and this update involves a very peculiar reference that has me scratching my head. This reference is also another example of why Safety and Process Safety professionals have come…...
We have discussed this numerous times over the years, but we rarely have a first-hand account of a “bleed” within a DB&B causing an LOPC event. But because CALARP now has a Program 4 Incident Reporting trigger, we get to see firsthand how a 3/4″ bleeder on a 14″ pipe handling a HHC/EHS can cause…...
Way back in 2017, the state of California (CA) revised it’s Accidental Release Prevention program by adding a Program Level 4 for the state’s refineries. In addition to the expanded prevention program requirements, the refineries are required to submit investigation reports, including root cause analysis after any major incident. But the one aspect of the Program…...
