7/8/20 UPDATE: this LOI was NOT removed from the OSHA website; it was merely MOVED to the Year 2017 LOI Page (Linked Below). The letter was MOVED without any changes to its content – it was just moved to its proper year. This was merely a recordkeeping move by OSHA to reflect the year the letter was sent, but due to the passing of a great OSHA team member, the letter got lost in the shuffle of replacement personnel and administration. Many thanks to my friend(s) at OSHA for watching out of me and keeping me informed.
A major player in the process safety arena asked OSHA for an interpretation regarding the definitions of a process, the process boundaries, and the term “on-site in one location.” The scenario was based on Hydrogen, with a threshold of 10,000 pounds, being produced in one process (Employer A), and put into a pipeline that feeds another facility (Employer B) who uses the Hydrogen in their process. The receiving facility (Employer B) owns and operates this pipeline that CONNECTS the two facilities/processes and the pipeline is NOT regulated by DOT; essentially it is just a pipe run connecting two neighboring processes owned by different businesses. The producer of the Hydrogen is a business that has a model such that they will build a process next to a customer and provide industrial gases (hydrogen in this case) to the customer when the demands of that customer are so large that shipping in the hazardous materials is both HIGHER RISK and economically infeasible.
The facility that produces the Hydrogen (Employer A) has engineering controls in place to prevent the hydrogen from returning to their hydrogen generation process, through this pipeline, and ownership of the piping and the hydrogen gas changes at the fence between Employer A and Employer B’s units. The business that produces the Hydrogen in their process also maintains a supplemental supply system at a separate, “non-contiguous,” and “geographically remote” facility located within the receiving facility (Employer B) that provides hydrogen to (but cannot receive Hydrogen from) this pipeline. The supplemental supply also contains less than the TQ. Only by combining the inventories of the facilities, the pipeline, and the receiving process can the TQ of Hydrogen be exceeded.
The questions asked are:
- Would this activity be considered a process covered by the PSM standard and which employer would be responsible for complying with PSM?
- No definition of the term “geographically remote” (as related to Normally Unoccupied Remote Facilities (NURF)) is offered in 29 CFR 1910.119(b). Does a facility that meets or exceeds the required separation distances specified in NFPA Code meet this requirement?
For those of you with “interconnected processes” within your own facility/property – this LOI will make for an interesting read as well. Although this LOI is discussing the scenario where one business generates the HHC/EHS and pipes it to the neighboring process, owned by another business, which then uses the HHC/EHS in their process(s), the same rational/reasoning could be applied to many facilities that generate/manufacturer an HHC/EHS in a single unit and then feeds that HHC/EHS to other units on-site in quantities far below the TQ; the TQ is ONLY exceeded when all the units that use and generate the HHC/EHS are counted (interconnectivity).
Seems OSHA no longer accepts “engineering controls” to sperate interconnected processes! This would be a major departure from past practices and would take us back to the “gate-to-gate battery limits” practice which everything on site is essentially a covered process since everything in many of these plants are “interconnected”, even though we could show that the amount in the unit (although interconnected) was not in any quantity that could cause a “catastrophic event”. For example, the process that generates the HHC/EHS has a 0.25″ pipe that feeds a QC lab. The entire contents of the lab feed pipe are less than 5 pounds of the EHS/HHC; but is the lab now part of the “covered process”? OSHA says YES in this latest LOI.
(emphasis by me)
In this scenario, Employer A owns and operates a facility, located on Employer B’s property, which produces an HHC (hydrogen gas) but contains less than the threshold quantity (TQ) of 10,000 pounds. The hydrogen leaves this facility and is delivered to Employer B by a pipeline, entirely on Employer B’s property, that is owned and maintained by Employer B (not regulated by DOT). Engineering controls are used to prevent material from returning to the hydrogen generation facility through this pipeline, and ownership of the piping and the hydrogen changes at the fence between Employer A and Employer B’s units. Employer A also maintains a supplemental supply system at a separate, “non-contiguous,” and “geographically remote” (to the extent that all separation distances required by NFPA 55 are met or exceeded) facility located within Employer B’s facility that provides hydrogen to (but cannot receive material from) this pipeline. The supplemental supply also contains less than the TQ. Only by combining the inventories of the facilities, the pipeline and Employer B’s process can the TQ be exceeded.
Question 1: Would this activity be considered a process covered by the PSM standard and which employer would be responsible for complying with PSM?
Response: YES – OSHA defines a process at 29 CFR 1910.119(b) – Process means any activity involving a highly hazardous chemical including any use, storage, manufacturing, handling, or the on-site movement of such chemicals, or combination of these activities. For purposes of this definition, any group of vessels which are interconnected and separate vessels which are located such that a highly hazardous chemical could be involved in a potential release shall be considered a single process.
For the scenario you describe, Employer A and Employer B are two separate employers, however, the hydrogen generator, owned by Employer A, is located on Employer B premises. The Employer A hydrogen generator feeds directly to Employer B’s process. Employer B appears to have a quantity above the threshold 10,000 pounds within their facility property taking into account the process, hydrogen generator, and onsite storage. As stated in the Federal Register link below, coverage is only excluded where the HHC threshold would be met by aggregating all amounts in interconnected or co-located vessels but some of the amounts needed to meet the threshold quantity are outside of the perimeter of the employer’s facility. In this case, all of the hydrogen inventories are located within employer B’s facility property and hence are contiguous. OSHA interprets “on-site in one location” to mean that coverage extends to vessels within contiguous areas controlled by an employer or group of affiliated employers. Therefore, the extent to which each affiliated employer develops a PSM program may be a business or contractual decision determined by the employers. OSHA will evaluate the PSM program and employee exposures as a whole, and either or both employers could have responsibilities under OSHA’s PSM standard. Below are some relevant OSHA Letters of Interpretation / Federal Register Postings:
“Limits of a covered process”: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=22361
“Colocation of HHC containers”: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=29324
“On site in one location”: https://www.osha.gov/FedReg_osha_pdf/FED20070607.pdf
Question 2: No definition of the term “geographically remote” (as related to Normally Unoccupied Remote Facilities (NURF)) is offered in 29 CFR 1910.119(b). Does a facility that meets or exceeds the required separation distances specified in NFPA Code meet this requirement?
Response: No – Normally unoccupied remote facility is defined at 29 CFR
1910.119(b) — “Normally unoccupied remote facility” means a facility which is operated, maintained or serviced by employees who visit the facility only periodically to check its operation and to perform necessary operating or maintenance tasks. No employees are permanently stationed at the facility. Facilities meeting this definition are not contiguous with, and must be geographically remote from all other buildings, processes, or persons.
A covered process is exempt if it is NOT [emphasis by OSHA] normally occupied as indicated in the following letter of interpretation:
05/29/1998 — PSM Standard exemption for “Normally Unoccupied Remote Facilities” (water treatment plant).
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=22592
In addition, the process must NOT (emphasis by me) be contiguous to the plant site AND must be geographically remote from all other buildings, processes or persons. The intent is to ensure that employees are isolated from the hazards of the NURF process. Geographically remote, when used in context of normally unoccupied and remote, means that any incident including catastrophic release, fire or explosion in the “remote” location could not affect or impact any buildings, equipment, property or employees at the plant site. Generally, this distance is much greater than the separation distances listed in NFPA standards.
The following letters of interpretation include descriptions of the characteristics OSHA expects in a facility claiming the normally unoccupied and remote facility exemption:
“Determination of NURF Status”: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=25058
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=22592
CLICK HERE for this LOI