Chemical accidents can be prevented
But the industry must get serious about prevention
Hurricane Harvey has reminded us that much of America’s chemical infrastructure is in serious peril. The fires and explosions at the Arkema peroxide plant in Crosby, which sickened first responders and terrified the surrounding community, illustrate what happens when industry is allowed to operate for decades without effective safety oversight.
Arkema capitalized on the weakness of the current regulatory system, even as the company lobbied the Environmental Protection Agency to keep those rules unchanged. The current rules largely omit coverage for reactive chemicals like Arkema’s peroxides — just as those rules still do not cover the fertilizer ammonium nitrate that detonated and leveled much of West, Texas in April 2013, killing 15 people.
Arkema filed its federally required risk management plans but did far too little to reduce the actual danger from an obvious and acknowledged
hazard — the loss of power to the refrigeration systems needed to keep its highly reactive organic peroxides from decomposing explosively.
This highlights a fatal design weakness in current rules. Companies can substantively comply with the rules by generating paperwork showing that they have analyzed their chemical risks and possible worst-case scenarios. But these companies are under no obligation to actually reduce these risks to the lowest practicable levels by applying safer technologies and utilizing the most up-to-date industry best practices.
The U.S. approach is radically different from that of other developed nations. A number of overseas regulators require companies to develop what’s called a “safety case” — a detailed report showing how each catastrophic risk is being reduced and establishing specific, legally binding requirements for each hazardous facility.
Each safety case report is periodically reviewed by government technical experts and may be rejected if it is found inadequate, which bars the facility from operating. And this system works: According to reinsurance industry statistics, overseas nations have an accident rate that is at least three times lower than the U.S. Here, California recently overhauled its regulations to bring them in line with the new international standard.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical disasters, has found time and again that major accidents at U.S. plants could have been avoided by following known safety practices. While serving as CSB chairperson in 2014, I wrote in The New York Times that the U.S. “is facing an industrial chemical safety crisis” and called for the federal government to mandate the use of safer chemicals and technologies and take other steps to minimize risk.
The article caused a furor among industry lobbyists, who used their considerable influence in Congress to undermine the CSB and to deflect potential regulatory changes. Large trade associations such as the American Chemistry Council dismissed the proposed rules, asserting that accidents primarily afflicted small “outlier” companies that did not participate in industrysponsored voluntary safety programs. But major accidents at industry leaders such as Exxon, Chevron and DuPont belie those rosy claims.
A few weeks before his administration ended, President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency finalized a modest update to its risk management rules. The EPA’s new leadership under Scott Pruitt has now frozen even these timid regulatory changes indefinitely, while the Trump administration has recommended to Congress that the CSB be eliminated due to “the duplicative nature of its work.”
None of those actions will help Houston and all the other communities that depend on safe, reliable chemical operations. Instead, here’s what should happen right away: 1 Federal regulators should overhaul the current, antiquated system of safety rules governing oil and chemical plants. We need a modern framework for minimizing technological risks, based on the safety case system used widely overseas. 2 The regulations need to be broadened to cover the full range of chemical hazards — not only reactive chemicals like organic peroxides and ammonium nitrate, but also dangerous chemicals used in upstream oil and gas production. 3 The agencies tasked with developing and enforcing the rules — and investigating any mishaps — need far more personnel, technical expertise and resources. Competent inspectors need to be inside these plants every year. 4 There needs to be much better public reporting of chemical facility fatalities, accidents, near-misses and other safety performance measures. Community groups and labor organizations need seats at the table in developing new laws, regulations and safety practices — because ultimately their lives are the ones at stake.