Central Coal and Coke No. 1 Tank Battery - Executive Summary |
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The Central Coal and Coke No. 1 Tank Battery (CCC) is an oil & gas production facility located in San Jacinto County, Texas. The facility is located in a remote section on federal land in the Sam Houston National Forest. The area is regularly audited by National Forest Services for Safety concerns. The primary operations at the facility include natural gas liquids separation, natural gas separation, dehydration, and compression. RMP regulations apply to facilities that have certain chemicals in amounts exceeding a threshold quantity. The applicable chemical at CCC is Natural Gas Liquid (flammable - NFPA rating of 4). NGL primarily consists of ethane, propane, butane, and pentane. In the event of an accident, an emergency response program minimizes the potential impact. CCC operator is trained to handle many potential events and coordinates with local fire department and office of emergency management for backup or certain types of response. CCC relies on the local fire departm ents for fire support and uses the San Jacinto County local emergency planning committee (LEPC) for backup for all events. EPA requires that CCC estimate the potential impact zone for accidents involving the regulated chemicals. A computer model is used to estimate the potential impact distance. EPA requires that two cases be evaluated: a worst-case and a more realistic case. The worst-case is highly improbable. It involves a release of the entire contents of the largest container of natural gas liquid with no intervention by facility operator. The more realistic case uses a more realistic accident. The result of the Hazard Assessment is a "zone of influence" which, for flammables, is a blast overpressure of one pound per square inch, which could cause partial collapse of houses and shattering of glass. The scenarios to be reported to EPA and the zone of influence are listed for the natural gas liquids. Natural gas liquids Worst-case - storage tank total rupture - 0.4 miles More realistic case - Rupture of 2 inch line of NGL's resulting in point source jet flame - 0.08 miles Many factors can affect the hazard distance. At CCC, the following steps have been implemented to minimize the hazard distance and to prevent accidental releases. Emergency shutdown switches located both within and at the perimeter of the facility. The facility is isolated from public access by a fence. In the event of abnormal temperature or pressures in the process various detectors will be activated and the process automatically shutdown and isolated. NGLs stored on site is minimized by daily removal by tank truck. Regular preventive maintenance is performed by contract maintenance workers and pumper operator. The tanks and loading areas are generally situated away from the main process areas and property boundary, such that if an accident were to occur the area of highest impact would be generally away from employees and the public. |