Aurora Cooperative - Sodtown - Executive Summary |
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The Aurora Cooperative Elevator Company's accidental release prevention policy involves a unified approach that integrates technologies, procedures, and management practices. The Aurora Cooperative emergency response plan involves the response services available in the community. Aurora Cooperative bulk Anhydrous Ammonia facilities have been strategically located to provide a local retail facility for this form of affordable nitrogen fertilizer for agriculture. This facility located East of Ravenna is made up of two (2) 18,000 gallon pressurized storage vessels and one loadout riser. It serves the Buffalo and Hall County areas. This facility is normally manned during business hours. The offsite consequence analysis includes the consideration of two anhydrous ammonia release scenarios, identified as "worst case release" and "alternative scenario". The first scenario is defined by EPA, which states that the "owner or operator shall assume...maximum quantity of the largest vessel.. .is released as a gas over a 10 minute period", due to and unspecified failure. The alternative release scenario is difined as "more likely to occur than the worst case scenario". Atmospheric dispersion modeling has to be performed to determine the distance traveled by the anhydrous ammonia released before it's concentration decreases to a "non-toxic" level. For this purpose, Aurora Cooperative has chosen to use RMP-Comp Version 1.05 to determine the distance to the toxic endpoint (.14 mg/l or 200 ppm) and to determine the population affected by a potential release using maps extracted from Landview 3 software. The worst case release scenario for Aurora Cooperative - Sodtown facility involves the failure of one of the 18,000 gallon pressurized storage vessels while it contains 85% (maximum allowed) of it's capacity. The alternative release scenario is based on the failure of a three inch transfer hose, assuming the complete failure of the in-line check valve and the excess flow va lve in the storage vessel takes two minutes to close and stop the flow. |