Facilities face challenges of process safety and risk management planning rules
- ENSR Consulting Engineering, Boston, MA (United States)
Two regulatory programs--The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) process safety management standard and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed risk management program--were developed to prevent and minimize the consequences of such catastrophic accidents as the toxic gas release in Bhopal, India. The process safety standard, issued as part of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, is designed to protect employees from workplace accidents; the risk management program, proposed under the Clean Air Act, is meant to protect the public from accidents at nearby facilities. OSHA estimates that the process safety standard will save industry $2 billion during the next 10 years by preventing accidents and reducing downtime. However, the agency also predicts that nearly 25,000 facilities in 127 industries, from petroleum and chemical facilities to pulp and paper plants, must comply with the standard at annual costs of $900 million for the first five years and $1.3 billion over 10 years. EPA estimates that about 140,000 facilities would be affected by the proposed risk management rule, which would cover facilities with threshold quantities of 77 toxic substances and 63 flammable substances.
- OSTI ID:
- 7245933
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Solutions; (United States), Vol. 7:8
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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