CLEARWATER CHEMICAL CO. INC. - Executive Summary |
|
a. Clearwater Chemical Company is committed to the safety and well-being of its employees and the public. Clearwater's policy is to implement reasonable measures to prevent a release of hazardous material from occurring, to provide early detection of a release in the unlikely event that one would occur, and to have in place a contingency plan to respond promptly yet safely to such a release. b. The RMP has been prepared to address the repackaging of chlorine at the Clearwater Chemical facility located at 205 E. Arrow Highway, San Dimas, CA 91773. c. The worst case release which was modeled was the release of the entire contents of a ton container of chlorine over a period of ten minutes. The alternate release scenario was the continuous release of chlorine from a piping leak. Both scenarios have offsite impacts. No credit for measures to prevent and/or mitigate such a release were taken. d. Clearwater has a comprehensive release prevention program meeting RMP Prevention Program and OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) requirements. Physical safeguards to prevent a release of chlorine including best industry practices for the design and construction of the chlorine system and various procedural safeguards. e. There have been no accidents involving chlorine within the five (5) years prior to submission of this RMP. f. Clearwater's chlorine repackaging operations involve the manually-controlled transfer of chlorine from a large container to smaller containers. This operation is performed with two people present. If a situation arises that can be safely rectified by response other than emergency response under Cal-OSHA Regulations Title 8, Section 5192, Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response, they will take appropriate action. Otherwise the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACFD) will be summoned, neighbors will be notified and the facility will be promptly and safely evacuated. g. Clearwater originally performed a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) on t he chlorine process in 1993. Clearwater undertook a new PHA of the same process in May 1999 as part of the development of the Risk Management Program. The following changes will be made to improve safety:-. - Improved seismic hold-down of ton containers. |