US safety board urges change in use of personnel shelters

25 October 2005 18:28  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--The US Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) issued two “urgent safety recommendations” to the US petrochemical industry on Tuesday, calling for immediate action to move plant personnel shelters further from hazards.

 

The CSB said its preliminary investigation of the 23 March explosions and fire at BP’s Texas City, Texas refinery suggests that temporary personnel shelters such as trailers at production plant sites should be more than 600 feet at least from hazardous process equipment.

 

In the 23 March accident, 15 workers were killed and more than 170 others were injured.

 

But CSB did not specify a particular safety distance for temporary shelters and instead called on two leading industry associations to take immediate steps to enhance worker safety at petrochemical plant sites.  The CSB statement did note, however, that in the BP Texas City blast, trailers within 600 feet of the explosions were "heavily damaged."

 

In its first of two urgent safety recommendations today, CSB asked the American Petroleum Institute (API) to develop new industry guidance “to ensure the safe placement of occupied trailers and similar temporary structures away from hazardous areas of process plants.”

 

CSB said the current API Recommended Practice 752 - which CSB said is widely used to assess siting hazards - does not prohibit placement of trailers in close proximity to hazardous processes.

 

In its second urgent recommendation today, CSB said that until the new API guidance can be completed, it is asking API and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) “to immediately contact their members urging prompt action to ensure the safe placement of occupied trailers away from hazardous areas of process plants.”

 

Today’s CSB urgent recommendations are only the second and third such emergency actions taken by the board in its eight-year history. The first urgent recommendation followed the March BP accident and called on BP to establish an independent panel to examine the company’s safety culture in North America. That panel has been established.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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