Have you ever heard someone at your facility say, “that part of the process is not covered”? As a process safety professional, this may be our hardest battle in the big scheme of complying with OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standard and EPA’s Risk Management Plan (RMP) rules. In this article I would like to discuss a critical mistake many facilities may be making when establishing their PSM/RMP “battery limits”.
For more on establishing “Battery Limits” please see my 2011 article – “PSM Battery Limits – it may not be as simple as “Interconnected“
What do I mean by using the phrase “splitting hairs”? Let’s say we have a covered process that contains a toxic HHC/EHS such as chlorine. Within the physical boundaries of the process, we have a flammable liquid (or gas) system or process that is intertwined within the chlorine process or maybe even interconnected. This flammable liquid (or gas) is below the 10,000-pound threshold for PSM. An engineer wants to make a change to the flammable portion of the system/process and claims that since the flammable liquid (or gas) is under the 10,000-pound threshold that none of the PSM/RMP requirements apply. What would you, as the process safety leader, say to this logic? Is the engineer correct or is there a process safety need and an OSHA/RMP compliance need to do more for this change?
My position is and will always be that the portion of the process that contains the flammable liquid (or gas) and is EITHER INTERCONNECTED with the chlorine process equipment or is CO-LOCATED in the area of chlorine equipment such that an incident involving the flammable liquid (or gas) process could impact the chlorine process that the flammable liquid (or gas) process is COVERED under PSM/RMP. As I stated in my previous article when establishing battery limits”co-location” is a badly misunderstood and improperly applied assumption. The battery limits should have included the flammable liquid (or gas) to begin with, as determined by the original PHA (or one of the 5-year revals if the flammable system was installed later) and the engineer would have no argument. But that would make this a very short article!!!
So what do we say to this engineer (or management that has sided with the engineer) in order to convince them of their erred ways! Here is my approach, right or wrong, I truly believe that for BOTH the sake of process safety and OSHA/EPA compliance that this change falls under PSM/RMP.
Any process that is either interconnected or co-located such that a failure/incident within it could impact my “covered process” is INCLUDED in my process “battery limits”. It matters NOT that this flammable liquid (or gas) is below 10,000 pounds; it is COVERED because of either it’s “interconnection with my covered process” or it is situated such that it can have a direct impact on the chlorine process. Flammables have a HIGH potential for causing significant events within processes containing toxic HHCs/EHSs. One such HIGH RISK is a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE). Whether it is a flammable liquid or gas, having any such quantity of flammables within the process battery limits poses a significant risk to processes that contain toxics that have high vapor pressures.
We have seen simple “facility siting” errors place a process at unnecessary risk merely because of the lack of “open space” at the facility. What I mean is that the only open ground is right next to a covered process. And because the newly sited process’s flammable liquid (or gas) will be below 10,000 pounds, the engineer(s) do not follow any PSM/RMP protocols, not realizing the placement of this flammable liquids (or gas) in such proximity to the chlorine process MAKES THIS NEW PROCESS containing a flammable liquid (or gas) A COVERED PROCESS because of what it can do to the chlorine process, regardless of the amount of flammables within the process!
So if we have a process that may not even contain a listed HHC/EHS in quantities above their threshold, but this process CAN IMPACT our covered process, then any change to this flammable process MUST GO THROUGH the MOC management system so that these impacts and risks can be evaluated and approved. (By the way, ALL 14 elements of PSM would apply to it, not just MOC)
We cannot lose sight of OSHA’s and EPA’s definition of a “process” which states:
Process means any activity involving a highly hazardous chemical including any use, storage, manufacturing, handling, or the on-site movement of such chemicals, or a 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.
It is the latter part of the definition that comes into play with my example…
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.
It is VERY difficult to establish that a flammable liquid (or gas) that is positioned within a covered process will not have an impact on the covered process. We have worked with clients who eventually constructed a blast wall that segregated the flammable liquids (or gas) process from the covered process. They now have a blast wall built to a specific design, based on the quantities of flammables. They have this design signed by a professional engineer who did the calculations and designed the wall based on extreme conditions. The facility now actually has to manage its flammable process to ensure they do not exceed “X” pounds, for which the blast wall was constructed for. Of course, they were not happy when we informed them that “yes, the wall appears to have taken the flammables out of PSM; however, the flammable process still has to comply with it applicable standard (e.g. 1910…. .102, .103, .106, .110, etc.). Once they received their compliance gap analysis for the other applicable OSHA standards, the cost of erecting the wall to get out of PSM/RMP was not such a great “return on their investment” as they had originally thought. We have also come across dikes that were built to “segregate processes”, only to find the dike did not meet code/standard specifications or that someone ran a section of pipe from the covered process over top of the dike rather than around it (saving $$$$ in the short run!!!).
Bottom line… we have to stop “splitting hairs” when it comes down to process safety. Twenty plus years into OSHA’s PSM standard and with catastrophic accidents still occurring too frequently, I thought we would have learned our lessons. It is up to us, and often us alone, to educate and convince management of the right thing to do. If our engineer(s) wish to split hairs like this, then we must demand of them to document how their change will not impact our covered process. Make them put it in writing (e-mail is fine); but we should ALSO ensure that our PHA(s) and facility siting analysis have considered these hazards. And I will say it once again, the PHA should clearly document the fact that the “other co-located process” will NOT impact the covered process BEFORE we can differentiate between the two processes. I will leave you with this final thought/position from a1994 OSHA LOI:
Question 1: What criteria are used to establish a “remote distance” between processes which potentially may be covered by the PSM Standard?
Reply: When processes are in close proximity to each other such that an incident in one process could involve the potential release of a highly hazardous chemical (HHC) in another process, these processes are considered to be a single process (See the definition of process at 1910.119(d)). Processes which are not in close proximity are considered to be at a remote distance. Federal regulations, or national consensus standards and other criteria acceptable to OSHA, that provide at least equal safety and health to employees in the workplace, may be used to determine whether one process is at a remote distance from another process. For example, with respect to liquid HHC’s, where a dike built around a liquid storage vessel to fully contain released materials, is used to prevent interaction with another vessel outside the dike and neither vessel by itself contains a threshold quantity, then this physical barrier would be considered acceptable in making the two vessels remote from each other. This is set forth in the preamble to the PSM standard, at the bottom half of column two on page 6372 of the Federal Register…