Aurora Cooperative - Eldorado - Executive Summary

| Accident History | Chemicals | Emergency Response | Registration | Source | Executive Summary |

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 13 miles south of Aurora on Highway 14 is made up of one 30,000 gallon and one 11,000 gallon pressurized storage vessel and two loadout risers.  It serves the southern Hamilton County and Northern Clay County areas.  This facility is normally unmanned except during fertilizer season.  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 tha 
tthe "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 defined 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 chosed 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 - Eldorado facility involves the failure of the 30,000 gallon pressurized storage vessel while it contains 85% (maximum allowed capacity) 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 that the excess flow valve in the storage vessel takes two minutes to close and stop the flow.
Click to return to beginning