Industrial Hygiene Aspects of Hazardous Material Emergencies and Cleanup Operations
Authors: McIntyre-Birkner Ruth , Rosenblum Gary R. , Birkner Lawrence R. 
Published: August 2005

Industrial hygiene issues have a significant impact on all aspects of responding to hazardous material emergencies and on the process of cleaning up a hazardous material spill. The health and safety of all response and cleanup personnel depend on effective evaluation of potential exposures and expert determination of the appropriate means to protect against those exposures.

This chapter covers how the professional judgment, expertise, and training of the industrial hygienist are counted on during all phases of a hazardous material emergency. The industrial hygienist is involved with contingency planning for potential incidents and recognizing, evaluating, and controlling health and safety risks during the incident. The industrial hygienist also helps develop the cleanup site safety plan and contributes to the incident termination process, where a critique of the response and cleanup is conducted, and final documentation is made.

Ideally, it is the industrial hygienist's responsibility as an expert and a teacher to help others identify, recognize, and understand the cause and effect of hazardous materials incidents so they can be prevented in the first place. However, whenever hazardous materials are transported or used, a spill or release could occur. One needs to be prepared for unexpected incidents. Preparedness is as important as prevention; it is not possible to prevent all accidents, no matter what precautions are taken.

Hazardous material emergencies were etched into the public's consciousness by two major catastrophes in the 1980s, the Bhopal, India methyl isocyanate release, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Both disasters resulted in major changes in U.S. industry practices and have put a new emphasis on the industrial hygiene profession for all aspects of hazardous materials management.

In India, a catastrophic release of methyl isocyanate, a highly poisonous and irritating vapor, rapidly killed or injured thousands of people living near the Union Carbide facility. Images quickly flashed to the rest of the world showing the devastating results of an uncontrolled release from a chemical process that produced a deadly vapor cloud. As soon as it became clear how quickly so many lives could be lost, much of the industrialized world launched top‐priority programs to examine its own chemical manufacturing processes to assess whether that kind of event could ever happen again, and to work to prevent it.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill took many weeks to develop fully, which gave the public time to develop a perception that the spill was of a magnitude that seemed beyond effective control, and the size of the area eventually touched by the spilled oil was astonishingly large. As a result of this incident, public attention became focused on the potential risks of hazardous materials transportation, from crude oil to just about any transported chemical. Prevention and control regulations can only go so far in preventing chemical release incidents. As long as transport vehicles are operated by human beings that must navigate around environmental factors out of their control, it is likely major incidents will occur for years to come.