40,000 US chem sites flock to security registration

29 January 2008 17:17  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Approximately 40,000 facilities have registered with the Department of Homeland Security to begin the process of determining which US chemical sites pose the greatest risk of terrorist attack, the department said on Tuesday.

 

A spokesman said the 40,000 sites - including production, storage and transit facilities - had completed the department’s “top screen” registration process by the required deadline of Tuesday last week, 22 January.

 

Under the department’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) regulation, any US site that produces, stores, uses, imports or exports or otherwise has possession of threshold amounts of some 300 listed “chemicals of interest” was required to complete the online top screen registration process.

 

The department has already begun an analysis of those registrations to determine - based on the nature and quantity of chemicals at a particular site, the site’s proximity to population centres and other criteria - which locations will qualify as a high-risk facility.

 

Those high-risk sites, which may number as many as 8,000, will be notified privately by the department within a few months and will have to conduct vulnerability assessments and draft security improvement plans that will be subject to federal approval.

 

The spokesman said that the department believes that the 40,000 facilities that have registered represent virtually all sites subject to the chemical security law.

 

Earlier, however, the department had estimated that the number of chemical facilities subject to the regulations might be as high as 50,000 or even 80,000. Those earlier estimates, said the spokesman, were based on information the department had at the time.

 

“The current estimate is now 30,000 to 40,000,” the spokesman said.

 

“To the best of our knowledge there are no facilities currently not in compliance with CFATS,” the spokesman said.  “However, if any facilities are discovered to have missed the deadline, they may be subject to enforcement action.”

 

Under the law, the department can issue fines and even obtain a court order to halt operations at a non-compliant facility.

 

The spokesman also said that whatever the total top screen registration number may be, the department “is very confident, based on current federal data and our partnership with the chemical sector, that it knows who the high-risk chemical facilities are in the US”.

 

He conceded that “there is currently no complete listing of all high-risk US chemical facilities,” , adding that it was the principal objective of the top screen process.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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