I stumbled across this international study regarding community effects from a large scale NH3 release in 2022. The study wanted to validate or in-validate community complaints years after the event. Residents, numbers unknown, had been complaining of “loss of smell” after being exposed to hundreds of ppm’s of NH3. The study was interesting in that…...
We continue to see NH3 LOPC events from piping and piping components. We could debate whether PSM/RMP has had an impact on this industrial sector. I have no idea what actually failed nor do I know the failure mode. What I do know is that NH3 makes the news weekly. Compared to Chlorine, #2 HHC/EHS…...
I really struggle to understand how so many smart people that use the acronym “PSI” dozens of times a day, but never really grasp what it means. I have debated this topic hundreds of times as it always comes up in my LOTO and Process Safety courses and daily work I do in these safety…...
On March 9, 2009, Employee #1 was testing a newly-installed 6 in. steel fire protection water main. When it was pressurized with air, a 6 in. pipe cap flew off the end of the pipe and struck Employee #1’s forehead, killing him. Violations/Penalties Serious Total Initial Violations 5 5 Current Violations 3 3 Initial Penalty…...
On May 4, 2013, Employee #1, a 40-year-old male construction worker was blinded by a test plug that burst while conducting a leak test on a new 4″ diameter sewer line which was made of cast iron. Employee #1 said that he inserted a 2″ diameter by 2′ long test plug into the new cast…...
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...
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…...
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…...
