City of Ballinger Water Treatment Plant - Executive Summary |
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1. Accidental release prevention and emergency response policies: At the Ballinger Water Treatment Plant, we handle chlorine, which is one of the toxic chemicals listed by the EPA. Chlorine is valuable as a disinfectant in the treatment process for water. By using chlorine as a disinfectant, we are able to provide our customers with a safe drinking water supply. Certain saftey precautions must be observed when handling chlorine to prevent unnecessary human exposure. It is of the upmost importance to the City of Ballinger to reduce the threat of exposure to chlorine to our employees and nearby members of the community. It is the City of Ballinger's policy to adhere to all saftey measures when handling chlorine and therefore, we are constantly in an ongoing saftey program with our employees in regards to handling chlorine. Included in these saftey programs are the City of Ballinger voluntary fire department and City of Ballinger Poli ce Department. 2. The stationary source and regulated substances handled: The purpose of this facility is to supply safe drinking water to the community of Ballinger, the Rowena Water Supply Corporation, and the North Runnels Water Supply Corporation. Chlorine is used in our water treatment process to disinfect water. Chlorine is received by truck and stored at the Ballinger water treatment plant. We have the proper equipment on site to load and unload one ton containers of chlorine. Access to the Ballinger Water Treatment Plant is restricted to authorized facility employees, authorized management personnel and authorized contractors. The regulated substance handled at this water treatment plant is CHLORINE. The maximum amount of chlorine stored at this facility is 5800 lbs. 3. The worst-case release scenario and alternative release scenario: Worst Case Scenario-Failure of a one ton chlorine container would relea se 2,000 lbs. of chlorine. It is assumed that the entire contents would be released as a gas. Release rate would be at 200 lbs./min with a release duration of 10 minutes. Wind speed is calculated at 1.5 m/sec. The distance to the endpoint is 3.0 miles. Alternative Release Scenario-The alternate release scenario involves a pipe leak on a one ton container. The contents released would be a gas and a quantity of 317 lbs. would be released at a rate of 10.5 lbs/min. Release duration would be 60 minutes with a wind speed of 3.0 m/sec. The distance to endpoint would be 0.56 miles. |