City of Midwest City Water Treatment Facility - Executive Summary |
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The Midwest City Water Treatment Facility's overall approach to chemical safety is recognition that providing a safe working environment is an essential element to increased productivity and quality control needed to compete in today's market environment. We have set the following objectives for our chemical safety program. A. To protect the health of our employees. B. To provide our employees necessary information concerning the physical and health hazards of the material used in their work environment. C. To provide our employees with the training which will enable then to properly protect themselves and the environment from hazardous substances in both the work environment and home environment. D. To comply with Title 29, CFR 1910.1200, Subpart Z. The Hazard Communication Standard. E. To make our Hazard Communication Program flexible so changes can be made as needed to comply with federal, state, and local Right-to-Know laws. Our management has committed to training of e ach individual employee on the job and at higher education facilities. A joint effort between the fire department, police and utilities personnel in case of an emission has been predetermined as per what responsibilities each will assume and all needed informantion has been published for training including emergency phone numbers of individuals and agencies that need to be notified. The water treatment plant consists of four main buildings. The chemical building contains 2-1 ton chlorine cylinders, alum, lime, polymer, and sodium chlorite for the production of chlorine dioxide. 1 ton cylinders are also stored under a protective canopy outside the chemical building. The amount on hand varies from 2 to 6 cylinders at any given time. Two of the buildings contain no chemicals, but do have pumps for distribution of the plant water. The administration building contains lab chemicals at the west end of the building on the second floor. The maintenance shop contains various clean ing and painting chemicals and is located on the east side of the building. Several structures contain as much as 2 million gallons of water and are of concrete construction. Various chemicals such as polymer are applied at these structures in the process of making raw water potable. The water plant used the cameo model for its worst case senerio. The total poundage released in 1 minute was 16,000 pounds. The wind speed was set at 12 mile per hour, from the east southeast. The air temperature would be around 89 degrees, relative humidity at 50%, and the topography is open country. From these factors it was determined that a population of 5200 would be affected with the area of travel being 5.2 miles in an urban setting. The rate of release would be 267 pounds per second and the rate of concentration at 30 parts per million. We are fortunate that the room containing the cylinders is concrete and would be of significant importance if a release were to occur that being it wo uld some what restrict the plume. Chlorine Detectors alarm at any rate over 1 ppm released in the tank or feed room. Our alternative release also used the cameo model. A single chlorine cylinder was used as the example because most problems with cylinders are related to valves and only 1 container is opened at a time, because this is the safest means for testing for leaks. This plant is subject to the rules of OSHA 1910.38, 1910.120, the Clean Water Act/SPCC and the state EPCRA Rules/Law. Under our prevention practices we have adopted many procedures such as the wearing of a SCBA while changing chlorine tanks and a 2 man policy at all times when this procedure is being undertaken. All personel are trained annually and new employees receive training within one month of employment. Our risk management division, the utilities department and several chemical companies sponsor training for chlorine and SCBA apparatus here at the plant. We also keep reading material on safety pro cedures on hand, as well as having procedures for chlorine safety posted in our standard operating procedures. Our maintenance personel have a program for periodic maintenance of all chlorine equipment. We have on site chlorine detectors that alarm above 1 ppm chlorine present. This detector is PMId on a monthly basis to insure accurate readings and work ability. Our five year accident history has an incidence of zero (0) releases. The names of the program cordinator and all entities who need to be notified are listed in the Risk Management Plan text. Mr. William Janacek, Utilities Superintendent is in charge of the program. The fire department of Midwest City will serve as the primary responding unit. They maintain a highly trained Hazardous Materials Response team with 5 in service units and 88 firemen. If a release should ever occur we have an SOP for reporting this event. It consists of 1. Name and phone number of person calling 2. Name and address of facility 3. Loc ation of emergency situation 4. Name and amount of chemical spilled 5. Statement of any precautionary measures 6. Call back number of reporting person. This call is routed through the 911 phone system. We also have the phone numbers of our local Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Commission (LEPC) 405-236-1717, the National Response Center (NRC) 1-800-424-8802, the State Emergency Response committee (DEQ) 1-800-522-0206 listed in the Risk Management Plan Text. Before this law goes into affect we will conduct training with each of our personel and then have refresher training annually. We will leave the public notification in the hands of the fire department since they will be the primary responder. In the future more training will evolve on the procedures listed in the Risk Management Plan. Equipment for detecting leaks will be upgraded and a preventive maintenance schedule will be put in place. |