## U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board 2175 K Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20037-1809 Phone 202-261-7600 Fax 202-261-7650 www.csb.gov

Gerald V. Poje, Ph.D. Carolyn Merritt Andrea Kidd Taylor, Dr. P.H. Board Member Chairman and CEO Board Member

Irv Rosenthal, Ph.D. John Bresland Board Member Board Member



## MEETING NOTES

ROUNDTABLE ON DEVELOPING IMPROVED METRICS ON ACCIDENTAL CHEMICAL PROCESS RELEASES

Washington, DC November 14, 2002

The meeting at convened at 9:40 AM

Mr. Charles Jeffress, CSB COO, welcomed the participants to the meeting and summarized the purpose of the roundtable and agenda for the day. Ms. Carolyn Merritt, CSB Chairman, pres ented opening remarks and goals of the roundtable, summarized below: The roundtable discussion provides an im portant opportunity for regulators and industry. Although the goals are the same, EPA, OSHA, CSB, and industry lack a single yardstick for measuring our performa nce in the area of continuous safety improvement. It became apparent in th e CSB Reactives Study that although each agency has its own database, none provi des sufficient information to quantify safety performance metrics. Intuitively, we feel safety is better but we have no objective method to measure our progress. Better data will help improve safety. The thoughts and observations captured in this meeting are important to the development of the metrics needed to measure regulatory and industry performance in continuous safety improvement. Mr. Craig Matthiessen, EPA Sr. Chemical Engineer, welcomed participants on behalf of EPA with the following comments:The new agency Strategic Plan is due out in December 2002. It emphasizes that outputs will be results driven. Accurate metrics are key to the ability of the agency to measure performance. EPA is fully committed to working with industry and the other agencies to id entify and implement improved metrics.

Mr. Frank Frodyma, OSHA Policy Director, welcomed particip ants on behalf of OSHA and stated: The OSHA Strategic Plan is due out in March 2003. Although the chemical industry has low occurrence of work-related fatalities, injuries and illness, the consequences of an accident can be signi ficant. The agency needs metrics to determine where to apply their resources such that they maximize their effectiveness in improving worker safety. OSHA is fully committed to working with industry and the other agen cies on this important topic. Dr. Kathleen Rest, NIOSH Deputy Director for Programs, was introduced as the Moderator/Facilitator of the roundtable and introduced Dr. Michael Elliott for the first presentation. Dr. Michael Elliott, Wharton School, presented “Review of Present RMP*INFO Data and System.” He summarized how the exis ting data are being used for accident epidemiology. Shortcomings of using the database include: The D&B numbers entered are often in error. The identity of the company owning the covered facility/process is need ed to conduct financial analyses of RMP covered facilities. A possible solu tion is to use both the D&B number and the stock market ticker symbol. There is no linkage to th e OSHA reports. Possible solu tion is to add the OSHA facility number. It is difficult to evaluate community de mographics using only latitude/longitude data, some of which are entered inaccura tely. Possible solution is to use the Census Tract number. Trend analysis cannot be effectively performed with the current five-year reporting period, as some facilities drop out of the database during that time. Possible solution is to re quire annual reporting.

Dr. Irv Rosenthal, CSB Board Member, pr esented “Improved Metrics for Chemical Process Safety,” a strawman proposal that wa s distributed to partic ipants prior to the meeting. The strawman argues that availabl e no data systems cannot generate metrics that can be used to evaluate progress in preventing (reducing) the number of chemical releases and incidents that have led to the current environmental laws and regulations. Better metrics will also help the CSB direct their limited resources at those industry sectors that pose the greatest risk. Metrics are needed to answer the following questions:1. Are the incident rate and frequenc y of pertinent accidental releases increasing or decreasing?

2. Are the consequences of such acc idents increasing or decreasing?

3. What industry sectors pose the highe st risk of an accidental release?

Dr. Rosenthal proposes two changes to the EPA RMP rule.

 Require annual reporting of accidental releases at covered facilities.

 Add a data element to capture approximate information on the level of operation of the facility during the year. He also suggested that this might be an opportunity to add other “practical” short term and long-term improvements in the database such as:

 Information on whether the process i nvolves batch, continuous, or storage operations.

 Inclusion of OSHA Occupational Injury and Illness information (OII) for the covered process

 Census Tract number

 OSHA facility number

 Stock Ticker Symbol

Any new or improved database must meet the “Practicality” criteria:

 Will provide the data needed to generate a minimum set of metrics useful to the Board

 Has strong stakeholder support

 Can be implemented within three years

 Is acceptable to Congress, OMB, EPA, and OSHA

Roundtable Participant Comments An important concept in data collection and analysis is differentiating between tracking just “improvement” (e.g., the fatality rate has decreased over the past X years) and tracking “what caused the improvement.” Need to establish short-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals (1-3 years) must consider the long-term value. Keep goals simple and achievable. Are the two proposed changes too simple and will working on them interfere with long-term improvements? The CSB should look at the bigge r picture and improve existing systems, not create new.Data Quality - More frequent reporting should help improve the quality of data . Need to clarify and/or add guidance on the definitions of when a release must be reported. Need better training of the users. Difficult to create a single system that fits all stakeholder needs. Causal factors managed on a national level are problematic.

Data collection regulations must carefully consider Confidential Business Information (CBI). Annual production rates, up-time, a nnual sales volume or other production related metrics are likely to generate CBI challenges. The regulatory reporting burden on small business is significant. In the event of an incident, there are “massive reporting require ments.” Consideration should be given to conducting a study of all available/required da ta collection tools before deciding to implement proposed changes to RMP*INFO. Efforts should be focused on understanding the causes of accidents, thereby eliminating fatalities, injury and illne ss, and less on trend data. RMP - Is the threshold bar on reportable inci dents set too low/high ? Current reporting requirements fail to capture the “good performe rs” data. Need to improve the definitions of reportable incidents, process change, etc. Much discussion on other types of data could be valuable, in partic ular Near-Miss (NM) data. NM data could be useful in preven ting accidents through c ontinuous improvement from lessons learned. FAA has a voluntary and anonymous NM data collection system in place that is managed by a third party. However, unlike the airline industry NM reporting requirements would be difficult to standardize across all of the chemical process industries (CPI). Subjectivity would be a problem . NM data collection might better be managed through industry groups. At the conclusion of the morning comment session, consensus was that improvement in frequency of data collection and data quality is definitely needed and would be useful to all stakeholders.

Afternoon Participant Discussion The afternoon focused on discussing other im provements or alternatives that might be useful. It began with a summary of EPA a nd OSHA rulemaking processes. The process can be relatively short (9-12 months) if ch anges are simple and broadly supported, or it can be very arduous and protracted if change s are more burdensome and stakeholders are divided. Simple changes are good, but shoul d also consider the opportunity to make additional improvements in same rulema king. Need to address four items:

 What does the proposed change accomplish?

 What are the consequences of not making the change?

 Are there other options? What is the cost benefit?

An option might be for OSHA to consider au gmenting the IMIS database to achieve the proposed improvements. This could be don e, but would involve a major database enhancement.

Short-Term data elements and reporting impr ovements were discussed. They include:

1. Instantaneous reporting of severe incidents (e.g., less than 30 days as opposed to six months) using simplified/unified /consistent reporting requirements.
2. CSB facilitate industry groups to develop method(s) to collect aggregated data.
3. Provide a unique facility identifier with data submission to link multiple databases.
4. Establish the order of im portance of activities:

a. Consistency and quality
b. Report interval

c. Improved training
d. Expand non-prescriptive criteria

e. Collect meaningful population data
f. Collect normalizing data
5. Collect Stock Ticker and Census Tract information
6. Develop a smart data entry process that performs basic erro r checking of data.
7. Use publicly available, easy-to-use data to correct the denominator for the “denominator” rather than CBI.
8. Differentiate between “normal proce ss data” and “maintenance by others.”
9. Consider use of economic activity data in the Dept of Commerce census of manufacturing data for each NAICS for each sector, FTE data, etc.
10. FAA model for Near Miss tracking is an excellent target for extra-regulatory implementation.
11. Need to address how to manage dynamics of facilities with multiple processes / multiple covered chemicals.
12. Revisit the RMP criteria fo r reportable incidents. C onsider publishing guidance on “injury,” “shelter-in-place,” and “p roperty damage.” Consider reducing thresholds for reportable incidents and differentiating thres holds for flammable and toxic incidents.

The above list was consolidated into the follo wing Short Term list of key target areas.

Short Term Target Areas1. Shorten the reporting interval fo r RMP*Info incident reporting
2. Provide guidance on defini ng incident thresholds.
3. Work with industry associations
4. Add unique facility ID# to existing databases
5. Consider floating additional data elements in proposed rulemaking.

6. Evaluate benefit/impact of reporting frequency on small businesses.

Intermediate to long-term activities requiri ng five or more years to accomplish are summarized as follows:

1. At industry level, use existing precurs or information (e.g., near miss data) and development of leading indicators for plant, company, industry, and group use in driving continuous impr ovement. Sharing Lessons Learned is critical to achieving these long-t erm objectives. A good start would be sharing within the company. The Wharton School has held NM definitions workshops. This could be useful starting point to reducing NM complexity.

2. Develop a single-point reporting data base. (Note: The Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center has reviewed available databases and will submit their list of recomme nded improvements to each of the database owners.)
The medium to long-term goals must be consid ered when addressing the short-term target areas. These goals are: Medium-Long Term Goals

1. Industry should develop leading indicat ors (precursor activities) to be used for achieving continuous improvement.
2. Industry should establ ish protocols for shar ing lessons learned.
3. Compare existing databases to impr ove data collection and eliminate duplication.
4. Consider developing a model simila r to the FAA model for reporting near miss data.
5. “One-stop” accident reporting in place of separate reports to multiple agencies on the same incident.

At the conclusion of the discussions, Char les Jeffress and Kathy Rest summarized the day’s activities: Sharing of industry data with all stakeholde rs can be a valuable tool in continuous safety improvement.The positive reaction to the strawman pr oposal and the energetic participation from the roundtable attendees provided ve ry good feedback to OSHA and EPA on the commitment from the stakeholders to long-term regulatory action. There appeared to be strong support for mo re frequent reporting to RMP*IFO of accidents covered under the EPA RMP standa rd: annual or even more frequently rather than every 5 year s as presently required. Industry is encouraged to take the lead on the short and long-term activities. The roundtable format, sponsored by CSB or others, may be a useful format. The CSB is responsible for investigating in cidents to establish the root causes and develop recommendations to prevent future incide nts. Although studies of accident data contained in RMP*INFO and similar data bases may not in and of themselves directly result in recommendations for safety improvements, the CSB needs these studies to effectively steer its investiga tive activities toward industry sectors with the highest risk consequences.
The CSB will consider the usefulness of Near Miss data in selecting, conducting, and analyzing incident investigations.

The roundtable was adjourned at 3:30 PM.

Notes prepared by John B. Vorderbruegge n, PE CSB Office of Investigations