Basin Frozen Foods - Executive Summary |
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Basin Frozen Foods produces frozen hashbrown potatoes and french fried potatoes. Like most frozen food manufacturers, the company stores a large quantity of anhydrous ammonia for refrigeration. Anhydrous ammonia is an excellent refrigerant, and has many environmental advantages over other refrigerants. Ammonia has been used as a refrigerant in the food processing industry for many years, and has an excellent track record environmentally. However, ammonia can be hazardous. In high concentrations, the fumes are highly malodorous. In higher concentrations the fumes can be irritating to the nose, throat and eyes. In the highest concentrations, and in very rare circumstances, ammonia fumes can be a serious health risk and even deadly. Under certain circumstances, ammonia is also flammable. These high concentrations would only occur under the most extreme circumstances such as an explosion or a ruptured tank. Basin Frozen Foods has never had a serious event involving anhydrous am monia. The company's safety practices have proven quite effective over the years in preventing accidental releases of ammonia gas. Basin Frozen Foods strictly adheres to the requirements of OSHA and the EPA in its storage, handling, and use of ammonia. This includes a Process Safety Management Program (PSM). The company has worked closely with the local fire department to coordinate planned emergency response in the event of an accidental release. The fire department is aware of the health hazards and the potential impact on the neighboring community. Should an evacuation of public areas or residences be necessary, the fire department is well-prepared to do this in concert with the plant's internal emergency response. The worst-case release of ammonia gas would occur should there be a catastrophic rupture in the plant's intercooler. This vessel can hold over 28,000 pounds of ammonia liquefied under pressure. Should this vessel rupture, it is estimated that it could be entirel y released within 10 minutes. In the event of this worst-case scenario, the resulting ammonia gas cloud could travel up to 3.1 miles before it dispersed enough to be completely non-toxic, and in this event, there would be off-site consequences such as evacuation. Under the alternative case scenario, it was postulated that a safety release valve might fail open. In this situation, the release of gas would be much slower and the total quantity of gas released would be much lower. The estimate is 5000 pounds of gas released over 50 minutes. In this event, the gas cloud would travel only 0.2 miles before reaching its toxic endpoint. In this scenario, there would be no off-site impacts. Basin Frozen Foods is committed to the safety of its employees and community. The company performs daily inspections and routine maintenance on its refrigeration system to ensure its mechanical integrity and safety. Also, the company continually trains its employees and members of the local fire department in the safe use of ammonia and how to respond to emergencies. |