Last year, hundreds of community members, regulators and advocates, including UCS, spoke out about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed standards for advanced risk management plans (RMPs). The RMP requires nearly 12,000 high-hazard chemical facilities to develop risk management plans to prepare for and prevent catastrophic disasters. The RMP has been subject to a political tug-of-war in recent years: it was partially strengthened under the Obama administration but quickly dismantled under the Trump administration. However, proposals so far have lacked strong measures to prevent chemical disasters, and the latest rules proposed by the Biden administration last year were no exception.
        While the current proposal restores some rules that were rolled back under the Trump administration, it still fails to implement many of the measures that communities near refrigerant handling facilities have long demanded: requiring those facilities to switch to safer processes and less hazardous chemicals; climate hazards and take measures to mitigate them; Provide workers at all PfP facilities with the right to stop working if there is a risk of injury; Install, among other things, monitors to measure air pollution at the fences of PfP facilities. several miles.
        This process has been going on for several years, and hundreds of chemical disasters could have been avoided if these measures had been taken. There have been about 500 chemical accidents since April 2020, and the number is growing, according to an analysis by the Chemical Disaster Prevention Alliance, a UCS member.
        One of the incidents involved a fire and toxic gas release at the BioLab chemical plant in Westlake, Louisiana. On August 27, 2020, high winds from Category 4 Hurricane Laura damaged buildings at a facility storing trichloroisocyanuric acid (TCCA), a chlorinating agent used to kill bacteria in bodies of water such as swimming pools. The TCCA responded to rainwater from the storm, causing heat that started a fire that burned for three days and released toxic chlorine gas. Exposure to chlorine can damage tissue and cause breathing problems such as coughing and difficulty breathing, blurred vision, burning sensations and nausea. Although no injuries were reported, more than 10,000 people live within a mile of the site, some of whom reported health effects.
        Last month, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released its investigation report into the incident. The CSB is an independent federal agency that investigates chemical releases and issues safety recommendations to prevent harm from future incidents.
        The report criticized BioLab for failing to “implement industry recommendations for extreme weather preparedness,” particularly following the catastrophic explosion at the Arkema chemical plant near Houston, Texas, in 2017 following Hurricane Harvey. The BioLab report also criticized the company for delays in emergency response, outdated and “largely ineffective fire protection systems,” and a failure to train employees to operate backup generators, which exacerbated chlorine emissions.
        The report also highlights a fundamental regulatory gap: TCCA is not a controlled substance under the RMP, and while it continues to be implicated in chemical disasters, it is one of many reactive chemicals that are not currently subject to this rule (see example ). Because TCCA is not subject to this rule, BioLab is not required to implement a process safety management system for its TCCA-related operations.
        Despite a CSB report more than two decades ago calling on EPA to regulate reactive chemicals under the RMP, EPA has failed to add reactive chemicals to the list of regulated substances. Since then, the CSB has completed investigations into six additional chemical incidents between 2002 and 2020.
        This is not the only incident that occurred at the Biolaboratory factories in 2020. On September 14 of that year, less than three weeks after the Westlake incident, a similar chlorine leak occurred at the company’s Conyers, Georgia plant. In addition, the Westlake plant fire was one of at least four separate chemical incidents in the area.
       The unfortunate truth is that existing regulatory loopholes and BioLab’s errors and omissions mean that the Biden administration’s proposed RMP regulations will likely not prevent the BioLab Westlake disaster in 2020.
        The current proposal requires tools to assess the risk of natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods and wildfires, but does not require businesses to take steps to prevent those risks. Simply identifying hazards does not guarantee disaster prevention. For example, emergency plans submitted by the Arkema plant in 2014, three years before Hurricane Harvey, identified hurricanes and power outages as major hazards, but the plans did not specify what steps the plant should take. to prevent these dangers. Additionally, BioLab failed to implement its 2010 guidance, which recommended that the facility “consider assessing warehouse roof structures for hurricane conditions; making sure the warehouse is built to withstand high winds.”
        In addition, the proposal does not require all RMP-regulated entities to conduct analyzes of safer technologies and alternatives. EPA has arbitrarily proposed limiting this requirement to approximately 5% of refrigerant handling facilities. However, requiring all high-risk facilities to evaluate and implement safer technologies and processes may prompt BioLab to inspect and update its dysfunctional fire protection system or install a sprinkler system that does not exist at the West Lake facility. This may also lead to training of on-site personnel in the use of emergency generators.
        Although EPA’s current RMP proposal acknowledges that the list of controlled substances needs to be updated, the agency recommends addressing this issue in future actions, which would further delay the process and again prevent the use of the best available science. . Adequately protect local communities and workers. Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency reviews its list of controlled substances at least every five years, but there has been no review since 1998 and no new chemicals have been added since 1994. The EPA needs to expand the scope of the rule, and agencies like BioLab need to develop risk management plans.
        The CSB report is timely as EPA staff is currently writing the final rule, which is expected to be published this fall. Even in the coming months, as we enter hurricane season, we may experience chemical accidents that could have been prevented by increased regulation. The final rule will also signal the Biden administration’s commitment to environmental justice and whether its recent executive orders will lead to concrete action.
        It’s time for the Environmental Protection Agency to implement strict regulations that will help prevent chemical disasters and stop passing the buck. Too much is at risk, too much is lost. Chemical disasters are not just one-time events, they destroy and tear apart communities, with the effects often lasting for years. As one member of the Houston Aviation Alliance said during a public hearing last year on the rule: “My cousin worries about the crash every day he works at RMP in Baytown, but feels like he has nothing to say or do. Well, the Environmental Protection Agency can.
        Note. The aerial photo above, provided by the National Archives, shows chemical fires near New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
        Daria Minovi is a senior analyst at the Center for Science and Democracy. In her role, she studies the impact of weak environmental and public health protections on communities to support environmental justice and science-based decision making.
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