The Homestead Corporation - Executive Summary

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The Homestead Corp is engaged in the business of manufacturing "controlled release" nitrogen fertilizer products at its plant facility in the Slatersville Industrial Park, in the town of North Smithfield, Providence County and State of Rhode Island. This plant has been operating under the current management, but under various names since the fall of 1967. Previous names under which this facility has operated are the Liter Gro Chemical Corp and Orgonics Inc.  The basic technology used since its inception in 1967 has been the reaction of urea with formaldehyde. As part of the conversion from 37% formaldehyde to U/F 85 Conc, a seperate building and containment area was constructed to house a 13,000 gallon 304 SS storage tank. This tank is equipped with an electronic sonic level indicator. In the event that the tank level exceeds 80% of capacity (10,400 gallons), an alarm is sounded indicating that all further loading of the tank should cease. With the containment building, diking and soni 
ccontrols taken into consideration, the worst case scenario was calculated using RMP COMP.  Rupture and complete release of U/F 85 Conc to the containment dike. The amount of formaldehyde released from this spill would amount to 30% of 130,000 pounds, (the maximum storage capacity of U/F 85 Conc.) or 39,000 pounds. Of this figure 22% or 8,500 would volitalize at 100 degrees fahenheit. The U/F 85 Conc storage tank is equipped with a centrifugal pump which transports the material to the processing area. In a worst case scenario, this pump would become inopearable. A standby air operated diaphram pump would be used to transport the material from the diked area to the processing area. The total amount of time required for this method of clean up would be four days. In the event the processing unit was not operable, the company would lease 3 tank trucks from the delivery carriers of U/F 85 Conc and use these trucks for temporary storage until such time as the plant resumes normal operations 
. At all times our employees are provided with proper training and equipment to maintain a safe plant enviroment and appropriate response to any spills that may occur.
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