Miller Brewing Company (Milwaukee, WI) - Executive Summary |
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The Miller Brewing Company is committed to promoting a safe working environment and has developed and implemented several programs to ensure chemical safety. The facility operates an ammonia refrigeration process and has several methods for ensuring employee and public safety associated with this process. The facility has developed procedures, plans and policies for the operation of the ammonia process and for dealing with unexpected accidental releases. The Miller Brewing Company has implemented a process safety management program which enhances safety by regular maintenance and inspections, hazard analysis, compliance audits, employee and contractor training, employee participation, ammonia monitoring/detection, and other activities. The Miller facility has an Emergency Response Team and a Hazardous Materials Response Team complete with state-of-the-art emergency response equipment. Both teams are trained to quickly and effectively respond to a release of hazardous materials. Th efacility also has emergency response procedures and plans to promote chemical safety in the event of an emergency situation. The Miller Brewing Company is engaged in the beer production business. The facility consists of several buildings where brewing processes are conducted. As part of the brewing process, an ammonia refrigeration system is utilized. Due to the quantity of ammonia maintained on-site, the facility is subject to the Risk Management Program regulations which are meant to promote safety at the facility and general public level. A worst-case release scenario was modeled to determine the greatest impact a release of ammonia from the facility could reasonably cause. This unlikely scenario is based on a complete and total release of ammonia from the vessel whose release would extend furthest off-site. The worst-case release of ammonia from this vessel is a complete loss of 11,500 pounds of ammonia in a ten minute period. Computer modeling was used to reasonably eval uate the impacts from such a release. The modeling indicates that impacts from the worst case release would impact public receptors beyond the property boundaries. An alternative release scenario was also modeled using computer software to reasonably evaluate the impacts from a release. The alternative release scenario is based on a small leak or hole (i.e. < inch) in one of the ammonia vessels or pipelines at the facility. The alternative release scenario is a scenario which is more likely to occur than the worst-case scenario. The modeling indicates that impacts from the alternative release scenario would impact public receptors beyond the property boundaries. In the previous five years, the Miller facility has not had any accidental releases which resulted in any deaths, injuries, or significant property damage on-site, or known off-site deaths, injuries, evacuations, sheltering-in-place, property damage, or environmental damage from the ammonia process. The Miller facility i s also subject to the Process Safety Management regulations under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). As a result of these regulations, the Miller facility has implemented a program to further enhance process safety which involves operating procedures, training, mechanical integrity (maintenance related issues), pre-start-up-review, management of change, compliance audits, incident investigation, employee participation, hot work (welding) permits, and contractor safety. The facility's emergency response program consists of five major core elements including hazard communication training on ammonia, emergency response plan, emergency response teams, ammonia response drawings, and coordination with local authorities and emergency response units. The emergency response plan at the Miller facility contains information and procedures relative to initial response, evacuation, fire response, chemical releases, severe weather, bomb threats, facility specific informat ion (site maps/drawings, security, communication system, emergency organization), emergency/spill prevention, post emergency procedures, training summary, and administrative management of change. As previously mentioned, the brewery maintains both an emergency response team and a hazardous material team. Both teams receive extensive annual training to deal with an accidental release at the facility. The emergency response plan for the facility has been submitted to the Milwaukee County Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC). Additionally, the Milwaukee Fire Department Hazardous Materials Team serves as a backup to the Miller Hazardous Material team along with additional backup emergency response contractors. |