Waste Water Treatment Plant - Executive Summary |
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The City of Youngstown's Waste Water Treatment Plant is committed to the safety and health of our employees, our community, and our environment. To this end we have formal policies and procedures identified in our Emergency Response (Prepareness, Prevention, and Contingency) Plan. This Risk Management Plan will be used as another program tool to further enhance this committment. The Wastewater Treatment Plant was originally built in 1957. It has undergone a number of changes in response to Federal EPA Regulations (Clean Water Act) and State and local needs. The facility was designed to process an average dailiy flow of 35 million gallons per day with a maximum of 90 million gallons per day. It serves a population of Residential, Commercial, and Industrial customers numbering about 250,000. In the process of treating the wastewater flowing through our facility we use Chlorine to chlorinate the waste stream and Sulfur Dioxide to dechlorinate the waste stream before it is returned to the Mahoning River. These are two of the Chemicals which are listed under the EPA's Risk Management Program Rules for which a Risk Management Plan needs to be developed. At any one time we may have 24,000 pounds of Chlorine in one (1) ton containers on site. The Threshold quantity requiring a Plan is 2,500 pounds. In addition, we may have 6,000 pounds of Sulfur Dioxide on site in one (1) ton containers. The Threshold quantity requiring a plan is 5,000 pounds. Using the OCA Guidance, we have determined a worst case scenario for both the Chlorine and the Sulfur Dioxide. In both cases we have determined that in a worst case scenario we could rupture an entire one (1) ton container of either material and that release could occur during the transfer of the container from its shipping truck into the storage building. This would mean the greatest release in a short time period with no mitigation to prevent the entire container from releasing into the environment. We have determin ed that this release would affect residential, commercial, prison, school, and recreation populations in the surrounding area. It is calculated that this release could affect the local population for approximately five and one-half miles (about 57,000 people). For alternative release scenarios we have chosen a small leak (200 pounds), which, when detected would activate our Emergency Response Plan. These releases would affect a smaller population (about 7,800 people) in a 2 mile radius. The City of Youngstown's Waste Water Treatment Plant has in place a comprehensive safety, health, and environmental program. Even though our facility is Not Covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Standards, we have adopted a very thorough Emergency Response Plan for our facility. We have even simulated a Major Chlorine Release at our facility and, with the aid of the City of Youngstown's Fire Department, the Police Department, and the Mahoning County Disaster Services Agency completed a Tes t of our Emergency Systems in October of 1997. Base on a review of our simulation, we updated our Emergency Response Programs and Systems. We continuously monitor our hazardous materials with detection systems in our storage/use building. These alarms are detected in our control room on the control panel and our operators can take immediate action to alleviate the potential release and activate our maintenance program to correct the malfunction. The Waste Water Treatment Plant reviews its Emergency Response Program on a regular basis to be sure it contains necessary information to protect our employees and our neighbors. Our plan includes names and phone numbers of Emergency Personnel and Agencies, including medical assistance. While we have had no occasion to Implement our Emergency System for a real spill, we continue to provide this information in our Training Programs and drills if it's ever needed. We will continue to monitor and review our systems on a daily basis and be sure that our preventive maintenance programs continue to be used effectively and updated, if necessary. |