At 6:15 a.m. on May 22, 2020, an employee and a coworker were in the process of transferring chemicals from totes on a delivery truck into tanks inside the facility. The deceased employee was responsible for hooking up a hose to the fill line on the building and monitoring the transfer from inside the facility…....
WRONG CHEMICAL – WRONG CONTAINER Fatality (Reaction produced Cl2) Read More »
Under a new Illinois state regulation, 8 IAC 215, anyone who works on a farm and handles anhydrous ammonia must complete Certified Grower Training by April 2022 and do a refresher course every three (3) years thereafter. This includes those workers who are either classified as a “Certified competent attendant” or a “Certified grower” as…...
State of IL is regulating “Ammonia Safety Training” as of April 2022 Read More »
Since my post earlier this week I have received several comments and questions as to whether this “explosion” was in fact a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. So I took the video and did a frame-by-frame examination of the event and I can say without question this was a classic BLEVE event. As we can…...
Breaking down the 2021 Big Sky, MT BLEVE, frame-by-frame Read More »
On January 6, 2021, at 2:30 PM the Big Sky fire Department was dispatched to a concrete batch plant for a vehicle fire that was reported to have spread to a large commercial structure. While en route to the incident responders were notified that there had been an explosion and that a propane truck was…...
First 2021 BLEVE event – LPG 1,000-gallon Tank Read More »
A “B-Train” LPG rig crashed, sending the smaller MC331 over the side of an overpass. Not sure if the accident threw the tanker over the edge or if the tanker was damaged in the accident and it launched in the air and landed over the side of the overpass. But as we can see, the…...
I-84 (Utah) LPG Tanker Accident (Video) Read More »
This 2020 LOI rescinds the letter issued on July 25, 2019, to Ms. Hill, by removing the parenthetical in the second paragraph of the background section. This is an interpretation regarding a possible conflict on the minimum separation distance between aboveground liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) containers and buildings in OSHA’s 29 CFR § 1910.110 –…...
The 2021 International Fire Code (IFC) contains regulations to safeguard life and property from fires and explosion hazards. Topics include general precautions, emergency planning, and preparedness, fire department access and water supplies, automatic sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems, special hazards, and the storage and use of hazardous materials. Key changes to the 2021 IFC include:…...
2021 International Fire Code (IFC) is now available Read More »
This safety alert is issued following an incident involving two explosions of ammonia gas cylinders at an ammonia gas filling and bottling plant. The plant has been operating for more than 20 years. The ammonia stock from the suppliers will be stored first in the bulk storage tanks with a capacity of 500 and 900…...
Ammonia Gas Cylinders Explosion Read More »
In workplaces that handle/store hazardous materials, there is a need for exhaust ventilation systems when these “Control Areas” exceed the maximum allowable quantities (MAQ) of these hazardous materials. I have used the International Mechanical Code (IMC) as my baseline code for 20+ years. We see this code’s basic requirements in a lot of OSHA standards…...
Fundamentals of Hazardous Materials exhaust ventilation systems Read More »
It has been 36 years since the Bhopal tragedy killed thousands of people late one night when it was released from its process. I was recently surprised by a facility claiming that the incident was “overblown” and that “MIC is a vital chemical to commerce around the world”. I can’t disagree with the second statement,…...
The Bhopal Chemical and is it as bad as you think Read More »
Both OSHA and the International Fire Code use the Lethal-Dose 50 (LD50) to establish the toxicity of hazardous chemicals/materials and both use the metric milligram per kilogram of body weight in their assessments. Just so we all have an idea of how small a milligram is… One (1) grain of sand weighs 1 mg An…...
Just how toxic is a “highly toxic” hazardous material? Read More »
We have been using OSHA’s Hazard Categories from the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) since 2012. I have written a lot about the flammable categories, but I tend to get a lot of questions about the Health Hazard Categories in my HAZCOM and HAZMAT training so I thought I would…...
Understanding the Inhalation of Gases Hazard Categories Read More »
