Britz Fertilizers, Inc. - Helm Railroad Siding - Executive Summary |
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This Britz Fertilizers, Inc. facility located at a railroad siding near Helm, California, is a distribution site for the transfer of anhydrous ammonia to other Britz and farmer owned storage tanks. It is not manned on a daily basis, and the ammonia rail cars are received only periodically, during ammonia fertilization seasons. The Britz employees who work at this site are thoroughly trained in the safe handling of anhydrous ammonia with a combination of classroom and on-the-job training sessions. These employees are also trained to respond to accidental releases by evacuating at right angles to the direction of wind.ammonia flow and then proceeding to communication sources where they can notify the company. The company, once notified, will initiate the pre-established notification program to government agencies, if a release goes or threatens to go off-site. The anhydrous ammonia is the only listed RMP Program material handled at this site, which exceeds the program's threshhold q uantity. There are two processes at this site which handle the ammonia: 1. Anhydrous ammonia railroad tank car (30,000 gallons/156,000 pounds) load-out, and 2. Anhydrous ammonia storage tank (18,000 gallons/78,000 pounds) load-in and load-out. The RMP Program 2 has been selected for this facility because it is a distribution site for the anhydrous ammonia as a nitrogen fertilizer for farmers who utilize it on their crops. It does not qualify as a Program 1 due to the presence of public receptors within it's worst-case toxic end point zone. The worst-case scenario is the release of the entire 156,000 pound contents of a railroad tank car, which has an off-site impact with a toxic end point of 1.7 miles. Two alternate-case scenarios exist. The first is the leakage from a 2-inch transfer pipe between the tank car and the storage or a transport tank. The second is the leakage from a 2-inch transfer pipe between the storage tank and a transport tank. Both alternative -case scenarios have off-site impacts with toxic end points of 0.60 miles. The toxic end points have been calculated with the DEGADIS air dispersion model. There have been no accidental releases or near misses involving anhydrous ammonia at this site in the past 5 years that have caused any deaths, injuries, evacuations, sheltering in place, property damage or environmental damage, either on-site or off-site. The emergency response program for this site consists of the evacuation plan (described in paragraph 2 above), the county-wide emergency response plan with the Fresno County Fire Protection District as the designated emergency responder, and our provisions for notifying schools and government agencies in the event of a release which threatens to go off-site. The training program for personnel who work at this site includes both initial training for new employees and refresher training for longer-term personnel. Some changes may be made in the physical processes due to the ana lysis of the inspections/audits performed in conjunction with the preparation of this RMP. |