At 10:15 a.m. on February 12, 2015, an employee was working from the elevated basket of a manlift, installing sheetrock in an area of the job site where water piping was undergoing pneumatic testing, at 130 psi. At the same time, another contractor was performing a compressed air leak test. An 80-pound section of the […]
Chemical Road Rail Water Total % of Total Domestic Shipping Totals\by Route (U.S. Tons) Ammonia (NH3) 5,793,000 3,470,592 1,718,974 10,982,566 52.8% 75% Chlorine (Cl2) 724,000 3,750,372 137,202 4,611,574 22.2% Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4) 257,000 207,560 2,057,721 2,522,281 12.1% 95% Acrylonitrile (C3H3N) 29,000 277,200 671,474 977,674 4.7% Ethylene Oxide (C2H4Q) 106,000 671,260 1,132 778,392 3.7% Hydrogen
In this picture from the Jack Rabbit, we can see the Liquid NH3 that has pooled under the container. This occurred under 95F temperature with a high wind speed, which blew the cloud away from the pool making the pool visible. The picture below was taken 10-seconds after the container was empty. Also, notice the
The data from the Jack Rabbit tests done over the past decade is immense and exceptional learning tools. I always make sure my students, whether it be a HAZMAT responder class or a Process Safety course, fully understand how Vapor/Gas Density impacts us in a LOPC event. Using Chlorine and Ammonia, the contrast is stark
This is a lesson in why “Unloading” any hazardous material is such a high-risk task. In this incident, the facility had their connections locked (but the driver was told the combination), they were using the driver’s procedure, the connections were properly labeled, the driver could not see the tank he was pumping to, the company
At approximately 5:00 a.m. on February 8, 2014, Employee #1, a K2 Pure Solutions operator, was depressurizing a line that contained chlorine gas. Two attempts were made to depressurize the line. The first attempt resulted in a small chlorine release and employees having to evacuate to shelter and the second attempt resulted in the employee
PRESSURE TEST, then LEAK TEST piping BEFORE the introduction of the Hazardous Material! At 8:30 p.m. on May 11, 2017, two employees had been welding a pipe assembly and installed it on a chlorine tank. Employee #1 opened a valve to transfer the liquid chlorine from a supply tank into the weigh tank. A flanged
At 9:15 a.m. on June 17, 2017, an employee was conducting routine daily checks on Well Number 1 and Well Number 2 chlorine cylinders and noticed that they needed to be changed out for full chlorine cylinders. The employee noticed the regulator was feeding chlorine gas without the pumps running and noted that there was
An MC331 tanker truck arrives at your facility and is placard with the following placard: And you have three (3) storage tanks that are labeled with NFPA 704 Diamonds, which tank do you think is the best fit for this material if you had to make the decision: In order to decide, you
With all the chatter these past few weeks about flammable gases and their NFPA 704 Diamond “Degree of Hazard”, it was suggested by several SAFTENG members that I write an article explaining what a “flammable gas” actually is, as some of our group text indicate some may not fully understand the true hazard of working
This has been a fun week with all the dialogue I have had with so many SAFTENG members; I only wish more were comfortable having these discussions online, but the fear of being traced back to an employer or being trolled by a lawyer I guess is a legitimate fear in our technical/risk profession. One of the
The NFPA 704 Diamond still reigns supreme as the labeling system for bulk tanks in the chemical industry and recently I posted an article about a Category 1 Flammable Gas and it’s “Degree of Hazard”. It is my professional opinion that a CAT 1 Flammable Gas is a “4” in the NFPA Flammability Hazard; however,
