William B. Walker, M.D. H EALTH S ERVICES D IRECTOR Randall L. Sawyer C HIEF E NVIRONMENTAL H EALTH A ND H AZARDOUS M ATERIALS O FFICER 

### Contra Costa Health Services Hazardous Materials Programs 4585 Pacheco Boulevard, Suite 100 Marti nez, CA 94553

- 2233 Ph (925) 335

- 3200 Fax (925) 646

- 2073
October 28, 2014
OSWER Docket EPA Docket Center Mail Code 2822

- 1T E nvironmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Washington, DC 20460

Attention Docket ID No. EPA

- HQ

- OEM

- 2014

- 0328 Contra Costa County has been implement ing accidental release prevention programs since 1989. The prevention programs include the California Risk Manag ement and Prevention Program (RMPP) , the California Accidental Release Prevention (CalARP) Program , and the County ’ s Industrial Safety Ordinance. The CalARP Program replaced the RMPP in 1997. The CalARP Program is the US EPA ’ s Risk Management Program with addition requirements. The County ’ s Industrial Safety Ordinance expand s on the CalARP Program. The Industrial Safety Ordinance requires facilities to the following:

• P erform a root cause analysis as part of an i ncident investigati on,

• I nclude Human Factors as part of operations, maintenance, and Health and Saf ety

• P erform Inherently Safer Systems analyses,

• P erform safety culture assessments,

• D evelop process safety performance indicators with four indicators that will be
ma de publi c, and

• P erform an analysis of the safeguards that are used in a process hazard analysis.
Five engineers audit and oversee compliance and enforcement of the California Accidental R elease Prevention and the Industrial Safety Ordinance. The number of serious accidents at chemical faciliti es and petroleum refinerie s has decreased si gni ficantly since the implementation of the Industrial Safety Ordinance. During the 1990 ’s on an average there was a serious accident that occurred in Contra Costa County each year. From 1999 to 2012 there was not this type of serious accident. On August 6, 2012 there was a major fire at the Chevron Richmond Refinery. There were over 15,000 people that sought medical evaluation from he alth concerns as a result ofWilliam B. Walker, M.D. H EALTH S ERVICES D IRECTOR Randall L. Sawyer C HIEF E NVIRONMENTAL H EALTH A ND H AZARDOUS M ATERIALS O FFICER 

### Contra Costa Health Services Hazardous Materials Programs 4585 Pacheco Boulevard, Suite 100 Marti nez, CA 94553

- 2233 Ph (925) 335

- 3200 Fax (925) 646

- 2073

the fire. There has not been another serious accident since August 6, 2012 in Contra Costa County.
The engineers reviewed the Request for Information on the proposed changes to the Accidental Release Prevention Requirements: Risk Management Programs Under the Clean Air Act, Section 112(r)(7) . The document that is included with this cover letter includes comments in response to the questions that were asked for in the Request for Information and the comments are arranged under the different section titles fro m the Request for Information. Please contact me at (925) 335

- 3210 or randy.sawyer@hsd.cccounty.us if you have any comments or questions. Sincerely,

Randall L. SawyerSUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

 I. Background

 A. Statutory Authority

 B. Executive Order 13650

 C. EPA Risk Management Program Regulations

 II. Discussion and Request for Data, Information, and Comments

 A. Introduction

 B. Potential Costs and Economic E ffects of Regulatory and Policy Changes

 C. Items in OSHA's RFI Rele vant to EPA's RMP Regulation

 1. Update the List of Regulated Substances

1) Concerning the severity of any acute adverse health effects: AEGL list includes chemicals with acute exposure toxicity and effect on general population. AEGL will also be pertinent in determining the toxic end point for the same reason. 2) Some E RPG

- 2 values have changed since the regulation was developed. AEGLs have gone through a very stringent process to develop the different concentrations of concern for different chemicals and the EPA should consider using the AEGLs that have been developed a t a one hour exposure.

 a. Adding Other Toxic or Flammable Substances

1) Concerning the Chemical List, Suggest viewing the CDC website of their list of chemical agents of concern: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/agentlistchem.asp#t 2) EPA should add to the RMP list of regulated toxic and flammable substances 3) Also, consider adding chemicals that are already in CalARP regulations (ethylene fluorohydrin, fluoroacetyl chloride, Lewisite, lithium hydride, methyl vinyl ketone, mustard gas, nitrogen dioxide, s arin, tabun.

 b. Adding High and/or Low Explosives

1) EPA should reconsider listing explosives on the RMP list 2) I n c urrent regulations and practice , the biggest safety gap is with the manufacturing of explosives, but there was the fireworks explosion i n HI when disposing of fireworks. M anufacturing sites may be co vered by PSM, but OSHA does not routinely audit facilities unless there has be en an incident or complaint

. 3) H igh explosives should be covered and low explosives could be covered with a higher threshold. 4) The basis of the TQ should be the estimated pressure wave that could be created and th e establishing an area that a 1 psig overpressure would cover from that quantity of explosive material. 5) RMP regulation should apply to manufacturers of explosives, end users, and/or explosive recyclers 6) EPA should consider establishing requirements for safe separation distances between explosive materials and public receptors simi lar to those required by ATF, OSHA and Fire Code for separation distances.

 c. Adding Ammonium Nitrate1) EPA should regu late AN under CAA section 112(r ) authority to improve chemical safe ty

practices at facilities handling AN. 2) Manufacturing or storage of large amount of AN should be subject to RMP regulations. 3) AN should be regulated as fertilizer, explosives and b lasting agents. As discussed before OSHA regulates only the process, ATF address the storage and handling. The two agencies with jurisdictions lack manpower/time to provide oversight. Inclusion in the RMP plan will ensure compliance because of local agencies’ involvement. 4) The specific re quirem ent that is appropriate for AN is that facility sitting should cover the concern of proximity to storage or handling. 5) The benefit of regulating AN under RMP is that the RMP would require practices on preventing releases and explosions, while the S afety D ata S heet and reporting would only give information that would assist in the response. 6) The basis of establishing TQ could be as discussed above the equivalent of TNT in determining the threshold quantity and the physical form that the AN is being handled

. If AN is in a solution the threshold quantity may be a lot higher than AN that is being used as an explosive. 7) Concerning the storage and managing of AN, all form changes should be covered. If the energy of the AN handled is not enough to reach a public receptor, then there would be minimum requirement under Program 1. 8) If the amount of AN that farmers store for fertilization reaches above the threshold, then th ose farmers should be covered. AN used as a fertilizer should have a different TQ than AN used as an explosive. There could be conditional exemption if the worse case scenario does not reach a public receptor.

 d. Adding Reactive Substances and Reactivity Hazards

1) EPA should add reactive chemicals to the list of RMP

- covered chemicals in 40 CFR 68.130

. EPA shoul d investigate how well TCPA is working and if it is working then use TCPA. Otherwise, list known reactive and water reactive chemicals and then require handlers to know the exothermic energy that could be generated from a reaction from a chemical process. If the energy from an exothermic reaction could reach a certain energy level the process that has that reaction would be included.

 e. Adding Other Categories of Substances

1) EPA should consider adding organic peroxides Class I

- III of NFPA 432 , oxidizers, combustible dusts, flammable solids, or other additional types of chemicals to the RMP lis t 2) Flammable solids could be listed in RMP. One of the concerns from flammable solids other than thermal or pressure wave is the by products of combustion, which m ay go much farther than an overpressure. 3) Dust that is formed from handling organic material, including plastics and sp ecific metal dusts such as aluminum and magnesium , should be included in an EPA’s list of combustible dusts

. 4) M aterial that could produce dust at a quantity where an explosion could occur then RMP should include the handl ing where dust could be produced , such as grinding, cutting, handlingof fine particulates, etc. Wh en determining when a material should be added because of

potential dust explosion the a ccident history in a particular industry should be considered, such as grain silos, sugar refineries, etc

. In Contra Costa County there was a major explosion where a worker was killed and th ere was a major impact to the surrounding community at a facility that recycle computer equipment. The dust was formed when cutting plastics and the dust from the cutting operation was being collected in a dust collector. The ducting going to a dust coll ector from a cutting operation a dust explosion occurred

.

 f. Remov ing Certain Substances From the List or Raising Their Threshold Quantity

1) The 6 substances for which the Agency has not received any RMP report should not be considered as a criterion to delist the chemicals

. The chemicals may now being handling the TQ and if the chemical is not listed then a company may increase the amount of the chemical being handled or the chemical may be used in the future.

 g. Lowering the Threshold Quantity for Substances Currently on the List

1) In general, TQs are at least one order of magnitude too high. If the intent of the risk management program is to reduce the probability of an accidental release from causing immediate harm to the public or the environment, then the TQ and the distance to the nearest public receptor should be more interconnected. For example, according to RMP*Comp a release of 500 pounds of hydrogen sulfide could travel 1.1 miles to its toxic endpoint. W ith this example, how protective is EPA’s 10,000

- pound TQ for H2S if public receptors are less than a mile away and the process does not exceed the TQ? 2) The example of TQ being too high is that Chlorine is at 2500 pounds in RMP and 1500 pounds by OSHA. Chorine’s TQ should be lowered to at least 1500 pounds. This may be too high, since 150 lb. cylinders of chlorine may be used in very close proximity to the public at a swimming pool.

 2. Additional Risk Management Program Elements

1) Clarification of PHA and hazard review revalidation requirements will be beneficial.. 2) Concerning the expanding of the scope of the RMP regulation to require additional management system: Senior management should be monitoring leading and lagging metrics. A section of the regulations should state the management systems that should be used and what is to be achieved by using the management systems. Process metrics is a means to determine ho w well a stationary source accident prevention program is working and where improvements can and should be made. This management of facilities should establish metrics to be achieved, including specific metrics that could be reported in the RMP Submit. This section would include communication of the prevention program and how this communication would flow up, down, and across the organizations. This section should include setting the responsibilities of the different elements and the overall responsibility of all of the elements. This section should include how the facility is achieving an ongoing review of the programs and how to improve the program s and the implementation of these programs. The regulations should include a Process Safety Culture Assessment, which could be a separate section or included in the management section. If a stationary source has good process safety culture, then the impl ementation of the different element would go beyond what is required, there would be good communication throughout the organization, and there would be a means of continuing the improving the prevention elements

. The requirements of the accidental release prevention programs should be part of how the stationary source performs its duties. 3) Leading indicators need to be designed to give an indication of problems or deterioration in key safety systems early enough that corrective action may be taken to avoi d a processsafety incident. Examples of leading metrics include : leadership involvement with line safety

meetings; manual interventions to stop work/process for safety concerns; assigned action items not completed on time (e.g., from PHAs, compliance audi ts, incident investigations, etc.); overdue operating procedure reviews; equipment failure upon testing/inspection; overdue temporary MOCs; overdue training; spurious trips of independent protection functions (IPFs); API 754 Tier IV LOPCs; process running in bypass; disabled safety systems. Once the workforce knows a metric is being watched, the frequency of the issue or its reporting may drop in frequency. A metric that is frequently zero is not a good metric. 4) Concerning the safety culture assessment in R MP facilities, If a safety culture assessment is done well, there is the ability to remove blinders that a stationary source may have and to see w here improvements can be made. This can be done in a proactive way instead of reactive. 5) Stop Wo rk Authority means if employees were empowered in a way that they knew that they could stop operations if there is an unsafe situation, major accidents would be prevented. If this had been done at the Chevron Richmond Refinery in 2012, the accident would not have occu rred. 6) Other management system elements s uggests performing safeguard protection analyses; allow only one PHA revalidation between full PHAs; defining what must be performed in a PHA revalidation; limit ranking

- away a serious consequence (for PHA risk ranki ng) just because something is unlikely to occur; requiring MOCs for organizational changes

. 7) In the existing RMP management system, requiring a hierarchy of control analysis should be done with an emphasis to implement inhere ntly safe technologies to the greatest extent feasible. Root cause analysis should be done as part of the incident investigation, the PHA team should have personnel that understand the different damage mechanisms that could occur, damage mechanism reviews should be done as part of the m echanical integrity element and pre

- startup reviews should be done prior to starting up a modified process

. 8) EPA should work closely with trade associations and technical groups, such as the Center for chemical Process Safety, in setting up guidance and wha t should be required as part of the safety evaluation and how to implement and regulate the safety evaluation.

 3. Define and Require Evaluation of Updates to Applicable Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices 1) Concerning evaluating updates, n ot every industry or trade group publication should be considered RAGAGEP. Major publications like API should be considered RAGAGEP for petroleum refineries and even then the API recommended practices may not be RAGAGEP for an example API’s recommended practice on fatigue . New updates to API standards or recommended practices should be reviewed and incorporated by petroleum refineries as soon as practicable. How soon is a good question? One facility identified it takes about 3 years to review, plan and begin implementing a new API standard. 2) RAGAGEP should be included in the PHA revalidations, MOC requirements, writing of operating procedures, and incident investigations

 4. Extend Mechanical Integrity Requirements To Cover Any Safety

- Criti cal Equipment

1) EPA should amend the mechanical integrity provisions of the RMP rule to explicitly cover all safety critical process equipmen t.2) Expanding the scope of § 68.73 to explicitly cover the integrity of all equipment critical to

process safety will assist in the prevent ion of accidental releases

. 3) The regulations should require that the stationary sources determine where different types of equipment or systems should be installed. This may be a situation where RAGAGEP may be used. It may not be practicable to encompass all of the different opportunities to list different equipment or systems. 4) Uncontrolled emergency shut down should be addressed in the facility’s PHA or hazard review along with the review of the adequacy of safeguards. Another sug gestion is to not allow or limit how facilities perform risk ranking in the PHA. High consequence, low probability events must have minimum safeguards. 5) Mechanical Integrity is the most complex subject covered by the RMP rule although the rule is short on s pecifics. Expand the rule to clarify: list of equipment covered (fire protection systems, boilers, heat exch anger , heaters/furnaces, emergency shutdown systems, SIS, electrical power, critical utilities, structural components, secondary containment, test/m easuring and evaluation equipment, employee alarms, portable gas detectors, control room building ventilation systems, cathodic p rotection, lifting equipment (cranes, JLG), stacks/chimneys/flare towers, any device critical to process safety, communication devices); written rationale for decisions made to include or exclude equipment from the MI program; define inspection, test, and preventive maintenance plan or procedure (ITPM) for all equipment; follow ISA S84.01 for emergency shutdown system safety instr umented systems; written procedures for ITPM and corrective maintenance; facilities must publish their ITPM schedules to the workforce and follow that schedule; require that each ITPM describe what is RAGAGEP for that equipment; changes to ITPMs only throu gh MOC process; specialized training and certifications; decommissioning; verifying repurposed/used equipment adequacy, etc.

 5. Require Owners and Operators To Manage Organizational Changes

1) An MOC should be required when there are c hanges in operations, including operators, operation supervisors and management, and process/production engineers; the portion of Health and Safety that implements process safety; emergency response personnel; equipment and piping inspectors; and maintenan ce, including mechanical and instrumentation. The MOC should be implemented when one of the following three situations are triggered : 1) organization structure (roles and responsibilities, reporting structure); 2) management practices (hours in a shift, d ays of operation, budget; 3) personnel changes (replace unit manager). 2) Concerning the examples of organizational changes, th ese should all be included, as any one of the changes will adve rsely affect the process safety

. Examples include longer work hours , reduced budget or lack of experienced manager/supervisors/operators. Suggest that a MOOC screening process be required to document that organizational changes were evaluated to determine whether the formal MOOC process was needed. Wh en making personnel ch anges, the experience, expertise, should be assessed as to not decrease the overall safe operations

. 3) The MOC of organizational change should be done by t eams that would evaluate the impacts of the changes on process safety and the teams should include management and employee representatives (selected by the unions if the facility is under an union contract ). The process must be documented. The baseline or existing situation (e.g., complete list of duties) for all positions impacted needs to include those duties officially assigned and all those acquired over time. Criteria for rejecting a proposed change should be established. Time sequencing analysis is useful for evaluating whether certain tasks are time critical and may need equipment automation to make the proposed change work. The MOOC analysis andimplementation of recommendations must be performed before the organizational change

takes place. For non

- union facility, employee representative should be included. In the assessment of time sequencing, must include normal operations and in emergency situations.

 6. Require Third

- Party Compliance Audits

1) Concerning comp liance audits : Documentation requirements for compliance audits should also be expanded to list all areas reviewed. This includes specific documentation that identifies how thoroughly each RMP program was looked at (e.g., blank questionnaires to be used) as well as suf

ficient documentation (e.g., completed questionnaires) maintained that supports which RMP programs were found to be working well. 2) In concept a third

- party performing makes sense but in reality there is a concern on the qualification of the third party per forming the audit. There may be third party auditors that perform an excellent evaluation of a company’s process safety practices but there may be third auditor audits that have low bids and do very poor evaluations. If there was a means to certified pro cess safety auditors and a means to evaluate the auditors, a third

- party audit may work. Another advantage of having the regulated source performing their own audits, is that regulated source will learn firsthand on where changes need to be made 3) If the requirement to perform compliance audits by third parties the EPA should revise §68.58 and §68.79 to require owners and operators to use compliance auditors (internal or third

party) with certain minimum credentials. For general program auditing it could include specific RMP/PSM auditing training coursework and/or CSP (certified safety professional) and /or a minimum number of years of experience. For “experts” (e.g., mechanical integrity) could use years of experience in related industry. There shoul d be additional requirements for the compliance audits to have a minimum thoroughness. Asking 1 or 2 questions for a topic is not sufficient. 4) The owner/operators should put a plan on addressing how they will address the findings and recommendations of the third

- party auditors, including a schedule of when the items will be addressed. There should be a means where the owner/operator determine that a recommendation or finding is not correct and document why they believe that to be so. This documentation sho uld be complete and should enough to satisfy an EPA auditor. 5) Concerning the timeframe for addressing the find ing s from third

- party auditors, sho u ld be addressed as soon as practicabl e, maximum 1 year particularly if safety related. Address issues as soon a s practicable. Require facilities to post on their website, or other publically available locations, in a conspicuous location the rationale for not addressing each finding within 2 years after the compliance audit was started (start date not report date). 6) A full compliance audit is not needed as part of an incident investigation but the investigations should look at where changes need to be made to the different prevention elements and management systems that failed and what improvements should be made to the appropriate prevention element and management system. A root cause analysis should identify the management system failure (s) and implement the appropriate corrective action s

. 7) EPA should clarify §68.58 and §68.79 to explicitly indicate that all covered processes must receive a full compliance audit at least every three years. 8) The identity of the auditor (e.g., in

- house, contractor, professiona lly

- certified, party licensed by EPA) does affect the credibility of the audit for potentially impacted communities. The most credible is a compliance audit that is performed by a third

- party auditor that is approved by EPA. 7. Effects of OSHA PSM Coverage on RMP Applicability

1) RMP

- covered municipal water and wastewater plants that are not eligible for Program 1 should always be subject to RMP Program 3, regardless of whether or not they are located in a state with a Federally

- delegated OSHA program, because the potential impact of a release of chlorine or sulfur dioxide could be large and impact a large area of the public. There should be the most stringent prevention requirements when handling these chemicals. Many times water treatment plants are located near residential areas . To protect public due to their proximity to residences. 2) If OSHA restricts its retail exemption to facilities selling regulated substances in small containers , then EPA should eliminate RMP Program 2. If there is a possibility of a release that could have an impact on the public, the stationary source should have the most stringent programs in place to prevent such a release from occurring

. 3) Eliminating Program 2 would put in place more stringent requirement for operators that do not always understand the impact of their chemicals that they handle 4) Concerning the appropriate level of protection, the US has not placed a value on human life like the Netherlands “Yellow Book”. Nevertheless, the toxic and flammable endpoint values in the RMP rule have established a limit, or almost an outer bound, that says accidents that produce these impacts are not good and should be minimized. EPA should expand their rule to link TQs and endpoint values to include facilities into the program regardless of how much material they handle if a release above the toxic or flammable endpoint could reach a public receptor. If not, eliminating Program 2 may encourage some facilities to switch chemicals or handle th em in lower amounts so they do not have to comply with Program 3 requirements. If a facility does eliminate or switch chemicals to be out of the program, that would be consistent with the intent of the risk management program to reduce the probability of a n accidental release from causing immediate harm to the public or the environment. If a facility remains subject to the RMP rule under Program 3 requirements, that means they would need to implement additional safety programs, which also meets the intent o f the risk management program.

 D. Additional Items for Which EPA Re quests Information

 1. Safer Technology and Alternatives Analysis

1) As of June 2014, Contra Costa County has increased when Inherently Safer System are required to be implement ed IST has expanded to include that all processes are reviewed for IST, recommended actions from an incident investigation, and when performing an M OC. 2) CSB found that the use of a safer material, such as high

- chromium steel, would have prevented the accelerated corrosion and failure of carbon steel involved in the equipment rupture at the Tesoro Refinery in Anacortes, W ashington in 2010, which resulte d in an explosion and fire that killed seven employees. [50] CSB also cited the failure to use more corrosion resistant high

- chromium steel as a factor in the 2012 Chevron Refinery accident in Richmond, CA
, which released hydrocarbons that ignited, endangering 19 employees. Neither of these is inherently safer, sin ce neither reduce s the hazard. The upgrading to metallurgy that is more resistant to corrosion will reduce the probability of the release and reduce the overall risk. 3) Concerning i ntegration of the safer technologies and alternatives analysis into the PHA: This should be incorporate d in the covered process design/construction phase. Unless the PHA is during the design phase for a new process, there will likely be little traction in significantly revising a process to incorporate inherently safer design. Instead, most PHAs will result in risk reduction measures like changing pipe metallurgy to reduce the impacts of corrosion.4) EPA should require a safer alternatives options analysis e ither as a new prevention program

element, as part of the existing PHA/Hazard Review element, or as a separate new requ irement under CAA section 112(r ), and A separate new requirement. Safer alternatives should also be considered in developing recommended actions from an incident investigation and when making a major change in the MOC process. 5) California is drafting regulations that would require petroleum refineries to perform a Hierarch of Hazard Control Analysis. This would be an analysis that would require a facility to implement inherently safer alternatives whenever feasible and to the greatest extent feasible. If an inherent safer solution is not applicable or even when it is, the stationary source should look at reducing the risk by implementing passive, active, and procedural means to do so. The analysis would move from inherent to passive to active to procedural. Hierarchy of Hazard Control is defined as: “Hierarchy of Hazard Control” means a system used to eliminate or minimize a hazard or to reduce the risk presented by a hazard, and which ranks prevention and control measures from the most effective to the least effective, as described in Appendix B (Appendix B is the diagram that is used in the CCPS book on inherent safety (Figure 2). 6)

. Haz ard prevention and control measures ranked from most effective to least effective are: (1) First Order Inherent Safety: Prevents a major incident by eliminating the hazard(s) altogether. Examples include eliminating a hazardous chemical or reducing high

- pressure or high

- temperature systems to ambient pressures and temperatures (2) Second Order Inherent Safety: Reducing the severity of a hazard or the likelihood of a release without the use of add

- on safety devices. Examples include operating at lower temperatures, quantities, and/or pressures, or using a chemical with lower toxicity, lower vapor pressure, or lower flammability. (3) Independent Layers of Protection (ILPs) means hazard prevention and control measures, in priority order, to eliminate or minimi ze a hazard. 7) Wh en a facility does an analysis to determine if a safer alternative exists for their particular process, s tationary sources should at a minimum do a literature search an d in some cases, lab work, and s hould look into industry standards, manu facturer guidelines, and chemical compatibility. 8) RMP national databases can be structured to promote the exchange of information both with industry and other stakeholders. 9) Ideally risk tolerance criteria would be developed that would make it possible to se e if the change would meet the tolerance level and be feasible to implement. 10) Concerning incentives, Some facilities may be able to handle other materials than what subjected them to the RMP rule. If safer alternatives are found that are not covered under the RMP rule, the incentive could be exemption from the RMP rule in the future. 11) EPA should require an analysis to be done using tools such as the IST checklist or incorporating guidewords in a hazard and operability study

. 12) Wh en determining if the implementation of an inherent safer technology, the stationary source should determine the risk that is associated with the implementation of IST vs. the risk that exists or other means to reduce the overall risk. 13) The benefits of such programs in risk reduction or process safety for the facilities covered under these requirements is that the overall hazards in Contra Costa County have been reduced. Reducing the hazard will reduce the impact if there is a release.14) IST can be used for many processes and stationary so urces. In Contra Costa County, all

wastewater plants have eliminated the use of chlorine and sulfur dioxide by using sodium hypochlorite and sodium bisulfide or using UV. At the minimum high hazard facilities should be required to implement IST. Chemical processing plants and petroleum refineries should be included as a high hazard facility if the facilities use a subset of the list of chemicals that are considered more toxic, explosive, and more volatile. This list could include chlorine, hydrogen fluor ide, phosgene, ammonium nitrate, etc. As a start, EPA could expand on the work performed by the DHS and CFATS and identify any facility subject to Tiers 1

-4 are considered High Risk and must implement IST 15) The concern of cost is a barrier for industry to adopt safer alternatives. T he Agency should provide special recognition to companies that implement safer alternatives, especially if the IST is published so that other companies can use the same technology. 16) One incentive is for fac ilities that implement a meaningful IST, EPA would do compliance audit and work with the facility in coming to compliance in lieu of fines unless the failure to implement the prevention programs are egregious. EPA can also modify its practice for issuing fines and penalties to facilities for them to place all or a portion of the fine into IST 17) EPA should have a role in approving such analyses or plan s w hen a facility determines that an IST is not feasible that they document the reasons for their conclusions to the satisfaction of EPA. However, EPA should not be involved with “approving” any safer alternative. If an accident still occurs or something does not work right, EPA does not want to be in the position of potentially being culpable. 18) Disclosure options may be difficult to do because of the confidential business information that may be used as part of the analysis. It is possible to have the stationary sources report the IST that have been incorporated and when an IST was not implemented because it was determined to be infeasible and the justification to support that conclusion. It is extremely difficult to share enough information with anyone who was not deeply involved with a thorough IST evaluation to adequately do it justice. The intent of doing IST evaluations is to get the right people involved. Regulators may have an interest to observe the process, but the key is to observe. Safer options implemented could be summarized annually on the facility’s website for the public. 19) Oversight will also be diff icult and likely inconsistent. EPA inspectors should be trained on the concepts of IST and how to audit a facility’s IST evaluation. If third

- party compliance audits are required, EPA could require that those doing the audit have met EPA’s IST training cri teria and look at IST. In general, any oversight should be focused on does the facility have a process for performing IST evaluations that meets the regulatory requirements, documents the analyses in reports, complies with the feasibility criteria establis hed, and implements the chosen options. Determining whether IST analyses are “thorough” and “decisions are appropriate” will be like counting grains of sand on a beach.

 2. Emergency Drills To Test a Source's Emergency Response Program or Plan

1) Some RMP

- regulated facilities are currently exercising their emergency response plan s. The petroleum refineries and some of the chemical plants are doing drills and exercises and coordinating with the local response agencies. Contra Costa County works with the different facilities in perform ing exercises and drills and with other local emergency response agencies. 2) Contra Costa County and Solano counties have a number of petroleum refineries and chemical plants and has formed a mutual aid agreement through the local Community Awareness Emergency Response (CAER) group. Guidelines were developed for the Petro

- ChemicalMutual Aid stakeholders to perform drills, assess emergency supply readiness, activations, and

share lessons learned. 3) The exercise/drill program should include internal (emergency response, notifications, and evacuatio n) and external elements (involving community and federal and state responders, as appropriate). The elements should include checking the communications between the facility and external responders; what roles would be played by the different response agen cies, testing the Incident Command System, and how each organization would participate in ICS. 4) A variety of scenarios should be performed with a variety of personnel. Operating units should perform monthly tabletop drills for each crew (sometimes sitting a round the control room and sometimes going out in the plant and hanging tags on equipment they pretend to operate). These monthly drills should be documented and shared with all crews for learning potential. Other drills could be performed quarterly and in clude individual factions of an actual response (e.g., making internal communications, plant evacuations, opening the facility’s EOC, assembling emergency response team, suiting up, practice installing a “A”, “B”, “C” kits, notifying agencies, activation o r simulated activation of emergency shutdown systems or safety systems (e.g., deluges), following select emergency shutdown procedures). Larger drills could be done annually and involve multiple disciplines including invitations to local emergency response agencies. 5) The drills/exercises should be performed at least once every three years. 6) The stationary source personne l and outside response agencies should be involved in the exercise program. 7) The management team should be an integral part of the drill. Metrics should be kept for each drill and discussed at management meetings to assess participation level and preparedness. 8) The designated official responsible for coordinating the exercises and drills will be different for the locat ion of the stationary sources. Language may be something like the most appropriate response agency. Local emergency response agencies should be involved since if it is an event that impacts the public, they will be involved. 9) Program 1 facilities (and Program 2/Program 3 facilities that do not respond to accidental releases with their own employees) should be required to conduct external exercises with community responders and test notification procedure s. Program 2 and Program 3 facilities whose employees respond to accidental releases should conduct both internal and external exercise s. 10) The findings and recommendations of the exercise/drill should be documented and an action to address these. The documentation should be complete within one month of the fin al debrief of the exercise. 11) S tationary source operators should be required to document and address lessons learned and recommendations when they respond to an actual accidental release. 12) I nformation such as the date of the most recent exercise involving the emergency response plan should be required to be reported to EPA in the facility's RM P. 13) It is a lot less expensive to require an exercise/drill program for all or a subset of RMP facilit ie s than an unprepared facility having an incident. 3. Automated Detection and Monitoring for Releases of Regulated Substances

1) Facilities should be required to install air monitoring equipment or sensors to detect releases of RMP regulated substances, or the conditions that could lead to such a release. 2) The systems sh ould provide for continuous detection and monitoring. 3) In many situations, facility monitoring can be done with alarms back to a location that i s appropriate for the facility. 4) In most situation , an automated mechanism should not notify, alert and warn the local responders and surrounding public of an incident included as part of any detection and monitoring system requirement, because of the possibility of false alarm. 5) The advantage of continuous monitoring is that it is continuous and can be 24 hours per day. A third

- party alarm agency is dependent on the third party determining when a leak is occurring. 6) To appropriately detect thresholds should be established for activating alarms and /or alerts. The levels should be established for the facility to react to an alarm before a potential health impact to the surrounding community. The levels should be established for each chemical of concern and could use AEGLs Level 1 criteria or 1/10 ID LH or odor thresholds. 7) The frequency to monitor equipment or sensor is already covered under the RMP rule under MI or ER. Testing and calibration should be done in accordance with the specific equipment manufacturer’s recommendations or more frequently. Th e tests should be documented once per month, including the date of the test and the results of the test, and also if any actions need to be taken to correct any problems with the equipment and what was done and when completed. The record of those documents should be maintained for two years. Also calibrate according to equipment manufacturer; annual third party certification. If equipment is covered under the MI program, which it should be, all test and inspections should be maintained for the life of the p rocess. A case could be made to only require records for 5 years for frequent (daily) inspections

 4. Additional Stationary Source Location Requirements

1) It would be good to consider siting before new facilities or expansions infringes on buffer zones in a community. It is beneficial to have buffer zones for highly toxic or flammable facility to allow for emergency response before communities are impacted. 2) Al l Program 3 sites should be required to follow API 752 and 753 even if they are not petro leum refineries . Nevertheless, most siting criteria includes methods for assessing overpressure and toxic impacts to employees, which is more suited to OSHA. EPA RMP w as written to address potential impacts to public and environmental receptors. New criteria would need to be developed to assess this.

 5. Compliance Wi th Emergency Response Program Requirements in Coordination Wi th Local Responders 1) In Contra Costa the Hazardous Materials Programs are aware of the emergency response capab ility of the different RMP facilities but coordination has not always occurred with other emergency resp onse agencies. Contra Costa Hazardous Materials Programs are capable of responding properly to such events at RMP facilities. W e visit our RMP facilities at our jurisdiction

. We conduct emergency drills at large RMP facilities at least every three years. Webelieve that RMP facilities should generally respond to emergen cies using their ownemployees , but there are times it would not be safe for a facility to respond because not

having the appropriate number of available employees

. EPA in general clarifies what is necessary for RMP facilities to adequately coordinate their emergency response plan with the community emergency response plan, with suc h language that a non

- responding agency is to ensure that an adequate response from an outside agency can be done and that outside response agency signs off on the plan that would require response from an outside agency. 2) There are certain substances or typ es of facilities that present particular response ch allenges for local authorities, including facilities that handle specifically large quantities of highly hazardous materials such as hydrogen fluoride and facilities that have the possibility of an uncontrolled reaction or fire. 3) If public responders are not capable of responding to a particular type of chemical or release event at an RMP

- regulated facility, the owner or operator of the facility should be required to provide for an effective response, either with the facility's own employees, response contractors, a mutual aid agreement with nearby facilities, or some other means.

 6. Incident Investigation and Accident History Requirements

1) Incidents that meet the API and ACC reporting criteria should be investigated and incidents that could have met that criteria unde r slightly different circumstances. 2) A specific time frame for incident investigations to be completed would benefit overall safety. As to time frames, some of the refineries in Contra Costa County have corporate requirements to complete all investigations within 30 to 60 days. Exceptions can be granted for larg e events. There are challenges and limitations to completing an incident investigation within a specified timeframe. I t may be appropriate that a specific time be required that could be changed by doc umented justification. Six months in many cases is enough time. 3) There are benefits from requiring that investigations must be performed even in cases where the owner/operator elects to decommission the process involved, where the process is destroyed in the incident, or where a facility determines there were no actual or potential off

- site consequences, because there is almost always lessons that can be learned that can be used at other process units at the facility or other facility sites, or by industry in general. 4) Use the API and ACC criteria for reporting incidents to modify the definition of “catastrophic release” assist in addressing the concerns regarding the appropriate scope of incidents that require investigations. 5) A modification of the accident history reporting requirements to reflect a broader range of incidents being investigated would assist in disseminating lessons learned across industry. 6) In most cases, there would be overkills for EPA required facilities to have incidents or near misses to conduct a full compliance audit under § 68.58 and § 68.79 . A thorough incident investigation including a root cause analysis will find the management systems that failed and develop a plan to address the deficiencies. 7) It is appropriate for facilities to share the results of accident investigations with the local community or alternatively a summary of the accident, and its root cause. Regulated facilities should be required to post summaries of their incident investigations for large events on their own website or other means to share information with the public. Information to include within the summary includes: introduction; scope of investigation; investigation team makeup; description of the incident, including on

- site and off

- site affects; brief de scription of the process involved; facts, including a time line; causal factor analysis, concluding with citing of the direct cause, contributing causes, and root causes; recommendations; justification for notimplementing recommendations, if any; schedule for implementing recommendations; and

glossary (if needed)

 7. Wo rs t Case Release Scenario Quantity Requirements for Processes Involving Numerous Small Vessels Stored Together 1) T he worst case release quantities should include the sum of the containers within one storage area of the process. Revising the worst

- case scenario quantity determination requirement in this manner would better represent the true worst

- case scenario for such processes. 2) This change would promote stronger process safety controls and help prevent accidents. 3) The types/kinds of the vessels that should be covered should not be considered, nor is the size of containers subject to the aggregation requirement. 4) There should be a specific distance between vessels established in order to consider them as grouped toget her for purposes of worst

- case scenario calculation. If a single event could potentially impact the area. This could include an earthquake where the storage building fails and all of the contents in the building are impacted. It could also determine the distance of separation that is needed in case the initiating event could have a direct impact of any vessel in the area. 5) The WC S should not include facilities that are interconnected by pipes if that is the only criteria used

.

 8. Public Disclosure of Information To Promote Regulatory Compliance and Improve Community Understanding of Chemical Risks 1) EPA should amend the RMP regulation to require RMP

- regulated facilities to post chemical hazard

- related information on their W eb sites, at least a subset of this information such as RMP chemical names, chemical quantities, executive summaries, release notification reports, accident history. However, misuse of information could be a probability. 2) Requiring facilities to make this information available on the company W eb site would promote improved regulatory compliance, because t he more willing a facility is to be open and transparent the greater that company is willing to address issues that relate to safety. 3) Facilities should not post P&IDs or PHAs for the process. The executive summary should be okay as long as it does not include the off

- site consequence analysis. 4) P osting the RMP executive summary on a Web site may cause facility ow ner/operators to remove important information from the executive summary. So the regulations would have to be written to address this concern. EPA does need to better define the contents of an executive summary in order to allay security concern s. 5) The i ncident investigation and root cause analyses of incidents that raised com munity concern should be made publicly available.

 9. Threshold Quantities and Off

- Site Consequence Analysis Endpoints for Regulated Substances Based on Acute Exposure Guideline Level Toxicity Values

1) Revising the RMP rule to incorporate AEGL

- 2 and ERPG

- 2 values (when an AEGL is not available), as the basis for TQs and toxic endpoints would make the RMP rule more protectiveof human health and the environment. It would result in significant changes to the universe of

RMP

- regulated facilities due to potential changes in TQs, if that facility is an RMP facility because of a toxic chemical. Facilities with toxics will be mostly affected, if that change do es occur. 2) 1

- hour exposure time should be used if the AEGL is used to determine the TQs and/or toxic endpoints. 1 hour would make it consistent with ERPGs if an AEGL has not been established and an ERPG has been established. 3) If AEGLs have not been established for a chemical, ERPG values should be used instead if they exist. If no ERPG value exists, an LOC based on the IDLH value should be used instead if it exists. 4) For an alternate method for establishing an equivalent LOC for those chemicals not having an AEGL or ERPG that will result in an appropriate TQ, Use the original method when the RMP was initiated

- mammalian toxicity data using a methodology described in A ppendix D of the Technical Guidance for Hazard Analysis, Emergency Planning for Hazardous Substances

. 5) For a short

- term release of ten minutes

– worst

- case scenarios could look at 10, 30, and 60 minute s exposures with the one that would impact the largest area being the worst

- case scenario. For releases for 60 minutes

– a 30

- minute and a 1 and 4 hour exposures should be considered. 6) AEGL 2 would be where protective actions such as shelter

- in

- place or evacuation may be needed and as such the toxic endpoint s hould be based on AEGL 2

 10. Program 3 NAICS Codes Based on RMP Accident History Data

1) The new set of code s hould not eliminate industry that has high potential regardless of history of release, and the new set of code s should contain the most accident and the industry sectors that show the accidents with the greatest impact to the public. 2) The agency should take into account the number of sources, the severity of the reported accidents, and a ratio of the number of reported accidents and the number of sources in a category, in selecting updated Program 3 NAICS codes. 3) Wo uld prefer to add more NAICS than to delete any from the original list of data analysis. RMP data should include accidents that have occurred from non

- RMP facilities such as dust explosions and reactive chemical accidents. 4) The original NAICS codes shoul d continue to be include d, because facilities with toxic will be a ffected. These industries have already developed the prevention elements to be compliant as a Program 3 source. If they were then only required to the Program 2, it would lessen their acci dental release protection. 5) It sh ould not cause confusion within the regulated community to change the list of NAICS codes for which Program 3 is required.

 11. The “Safety Case” Regulatory Model

1) NRC has nearly 4000 employees. Assuming similar math, EPA and OSHA would need to employ more employees (29% more) than the total number of stationary sources subject tothe requirements. The Safety Case regime as implemented in Great Britain, as I understand

it, would require about 150 0 employees for just the petroleum refineries with many having degrees in chemical engineering or other related engineering discipline. This would require that US EPA and OSHA to need many more employees to implement the safety case regime for petroleum refineries and this is not taking into consideration the many chemical facilities. 2) US EPA should look at what are the best practices from the safety case regime and look to see if it could be implemented in the existing regulatory regime. This could include the concept of ALARP and the RMP include how their implementation of RMP will reduce the possibility of accidents to the greatest extent feasible. If it is decided that the safety case regime is to be implemented, then high

- risk facilities are the facilities that it would be most applicable.

 12. Streamlining RMP Requirements

1) To simplify the process of determining whether the RMP rule applies to particular facilities, do not limit the determination of TQ of the chemicals to a process but to the comp lete facility. The complete facility should be subject to RMP if any one process is subject

. 2) Other potential revisions include expanding on a previous comment, once a process is subject to the RMP rule, every process would be subject to the highest program level on

- site. If a facility has one process subject to program 3 and two processes subject program 2 or 1, then all processes are subject to program 3. 3) If the CEO was required to sign off on the RMP, there would, in most cases, be more an emphasis of implementing the required program. Especially if the CEO is signing off that the implementation of the different programs would reduce the poss ibility of an incident to the greatest extent feasible. 4) The Program 2 level should be eliminated but a new level should be added to the high

- risk facilities that would have additional elements, such as requirement of hierarchy of control analysis, safety culture analysis, a detailed management system that include process safety performance metrics, expansion of human factors, and requiring that a root cause analysis be included as part of the incident investigation. Also manageme nt of organizational change

. 5) More emphasis on the accident prevention program should be placed on making procedures accurate. Most seasoned operators do not read each procedure as closely as they should since they “know” what they need to do. Wa lking down a procedure with an experie nced operator may reveal many inaccuracies in the written steps even though the procedure has been certified current and accurate every year. The operating procedure element should be clarified to specifically identify what is an operating procedure. Many facilities use written procedures, job aids, call cards, checklists, and a number of other ways to identify a list of tasks to perform. Also, facilities should be required to evaluate every task performed to determine whether it needs a written operating p rocedure, or one of the items described above. MOC should include the accepted means to inform/train all affected personnel prior to startup (e.g., is email notification acceptable, what if the employee does not read the email before working on the process ; how to inform personnel away on medical leave or temporary assignment; can a facility inform current shift before startup and then inform other crews of the change as they come to work?) The requirements for doing PSSR should be modified to simply say if the change triggered a change in PSI then a PSSR must be performed. Could define minor and major changes to streamline the PSSR process. Employee participation should be expanded to say that employees and their representatives should assist in the ongoing imp lementation of the RMP elements

.6) PSSR should be clarified for the timin g for training of each employee prior to introduction of a

regulated substance. If a change is imminent, it should be allowable that the training of other crewmembers be conducted as soon as they report to work , and the change is allowed to be implemented after the initial training of the affected employees. However, the PSSR should not be allowed to be considered complete until all affected crewmembers have been documented to rece ive the training. A PSSR should be required for all process start

- up after major maintenance work or a turnaround even if there are no MOCs associated. This PSSR do not have to verify training but must assure positive materials and process and equipment i s in accordance with design before introduction of regulated substance.