Hazard assessment communication for the EPA risk management program
- Union Carbide Technical Center, South Charleston, WV (United States)
The EPA published the final rule for its Risk Management Program (RMP) in 1996. The rule objective is to prevent accidental releases to the air and mitigate the consequences for such releases by focusing prevention measures on chemicals that pose the greatest risk to the public and the environment. The EPA philosophy is that accident prevention and risk reduction should be done through a dialogue at the local level between representatives of industry and the community. One element of the RMP rule requires that thousands of facilities using hazardous substances do hazard assessments by 1999 for their worst-case release scenarios. A facility should be prepared to discuss the scenarios and related issues, either before or after EPA makes the hazard assessment results available to the public. A facility should use the hazard results as the basis for public communication of the potential hazard associated with the facility and for starting a dialogue about accident prevention, emergency response measures, and the five-year accidental release history. Effective communication may build trust in the community that a facility can use hazardous substances safely for the benefit of society. This paper is based on the author`s experience in previous worst case scenario communication exercises. It discusses the role of the dispersion modeler in performing hazard assessments and what people want to know about hazard assessments. It provides graphical examples of how to effectively communicate detailed technical information to the public, emergency responders, facility managers, technologists, and others. Brief discussions are presented of the RMP rule requirements for communication of hazard assessment results, the history of Federal regulation of accidental release prevention, and previous hazard assessment communication exercises.
- OSTI ID:
- 351711
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970677-; TRN: IM9927%%236
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 90. annual meeting and exhibition of the Air and Waste Management Association, Toronto (Canada), 8-13 Jun 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997; Related Information: Is Part Of 1997 proceedings of the Air and Waste Management Association`s 90. annual meeting and exhibition; PB: [7000] p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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