Fire From the Storm: Chemical Release at Bio-Lab

[Music] August 27th 2020 the biolab Lake Charles chemical facility in West Lake Louisiana extreme wind from Hurricane Laura ripped through the facility severely damaging buildings rainwater seeped into the compromised buildings and contacted products stored inside causing chemicals to react decompose and a fire to ignite a large plume of hazardous gases including toxic chlorine traveled from the facility over the neighboring Community requiring many people living nearby to shelter in place and a major highway to be closed the fire and release at bolab is not the only significant chemical incident in recent years to be caused by extreme weather companies and Regulators must take steps to ensure that chemical facilities are protected against damage from natural hazards as extreme weather is becoming more common the biolab Lake Charles facility manufactures and supplies water care products for Pools and Spas one of the materials produced at the facility is a formulation comprised Prim primarily of the chemical tcca in large bodies of water like swimming pools tcca based formulations dissolve and break down slowly releasing available chlorine into the water to sanitize contaminants such as algae and bacteria but when a tcca based formulation instead contacts a small amount of water and does not dissolve it can undergo a chemical reaction that generates heat and causes the material to decompose and produce toxic chlorine gas on August 24th 2020 the National Hurricane Center forecasted that tropical storm Laura would become a hurricane the next day Laura was expected to approach the US Coast near major hurricane strength with strong winds and heavy rainfall that day biolab began shutting down its Lake Charles operations in preparation for the hurricane the company successfully transported about 825,000 lb of product from the site but some trucks scheduled to remove additional material never arrived at the facility meaning over 1 million pounds of the tcca based formulation was left on site the remaining product was placed on Triple stacked pallets to protect it from potential floodwater on the morning of August 26th biolabs management announced its decision to evacuate the facility all employees left the site at 1:00 a. m. on August 27th hurricane Laura made landfall in Southwest Louisiana as a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds reaching 150 m per hour the storm dumped huge amounts of rain with some areas of Southwestern Louisiana getting as much as 12 in strong hurricane winds ripped off portions of the roof that covered biolabs plant for production building which housed an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 lb of tcca based formulation because of damage to plant for's roof rainwater contacted the product stored Inside by 8:30 a.

m. the material began to react it generated heat and decomposed releasing toxic chlorine gas heat from the reaction and decomposition caused a fire to erupt in the building a massive toxic gas and smoke plume traveled over the local community toward Interstate 10 emergency responders closed interstate 10 near the facility and requested a shelter and place order be issued for nearby residents the fire grew quickly ultimately destroying the plant for process building and its equipment later in the afternoon around 5:30 p. m.

white chemical clouds were seen emerging from another building at the facility the building a warehouse that contained over 1 million PB of the tcca based formulation had also sustained severe damage to portions of its roof emergency responders work to reduce and control the chemical release by 2:30 p. m. the following day events at the biolab facility were deemed sufficiently controlled after being closed for 28 hours Interstate 10 was reopened and the shelter in place or was lifted thankfully no injuries were reported as a result of the incidents the chemical safety board launched an investigation Into the Fire and release at biolab and found that five safety issues contributed to the incident they are extreme weather preparation process Hazard analyses implementation emergency preparedness and response adherence to applicable hazardous materials code and regulat coverage of reactive chemical hazards the first safety issue is extreme weather preparation in May 2018 the csb released its final report on the 2017 incident at the arkama chemical plant in Crosby Texas at arkama flooding from category 4 hurricane Harvey disabled the facility's refrigeration system as a result chemicals that required Refrigeration decomposed and burned releasing fumes s and smoke into the air the csp's arkama report recommended that the center for chemical process safety or ccps developed Broad and comprehensive guidance to help companies assess their us facility risk from all types of potential extreme weather events in response to this recommendation in 2019 ccps updated its publication ccps monograph assessment of and planning for natural hazards the monograph presents steps for preparing for a natural disaster including how to evaluate wind hazards and how to identify potentially vulnerable equipment but the csb found that biolab did not adequately implement the updated ccps guidance at its Lake Charles facility had biolab effectively followed that guidance it would have identified that the buildings used to house the tcca based form ation were not built to Cent wind design code requirements this knowledge could have led biolab to take more proactive actions to protect its chemicals during a hurricane thereby preventing the incident and the csb found that additional measures are needed to ensure that aging Louisiana chemical facilities are protected from extreme weather that is because there are potentially many more more facilities in the state that store hazardous materials in buildings that were designed before current wind design code requirements were in effect therefore the csb made a recommendation to the state of Louisiana to require The Operators of certain chemical facilities at risk from extreme weather to evaluate the hazards to their facilities presented by hurricanes and accompanying wind rainwater floodwater or storm surge forces and implement processes and safeguards for protection against those hazards finally the csb believes the EPA should take further actions to help ensure that chemical facilities around the country consider risks presented by climate change and increased extreme weather events these actions were outlined as recommendations made to the EPA by the government accountability office or GAO in its report chemical accident prevention EPA should ensure regulated facilities consider risk from climate change for example the GAO calls on the EPA to produce guidance that requires covered facilities to incorporate hazards from climate change into their riskmanagement plans assess the risk of climate change during inspections and increase inspection of facilities located within vulnerable communities the EPA has yet to act on the majority of the gao's report therefore the csb made a recommendation to the EPA to implement the remaining recommendations made to the EPA in the government accountability offices report the second safety issue identified at biolab is process Hazard analyses implementation the CSP learned that tcca is not covered by the OSHA process Safety Management or PSM regulation however the biolab Lake Charles facility voluntarily adopted some aspects of PSM for instance the company performed limited process Hazard analyses or phas in 2010 and in 2016 before the incident during the 2010 PHA the potential Hazard of Warehouse product decomposition was identified with a potential cause of Warehouse roof failure due to natural disasters such as hurricanes or tornadoes the PHA team recommended that the site consider evaluating Warehouse roof structure for Hurricane conditions and verify Warehouse is built to withstand high winds but the csb found there was no documentation that such an evaluation ever took place had biolab implemented its 2010 PHA recommendation it could have identified that the facility buildings were susceptible to damage from Hurricane string wins this may have led to biolab implementing controls to prevent the tcca based formulation from being exposed to Hurricane rainwater and the CSP determined that the lack of documentation regarding the 2010 PHA recommendation points to deficiencies in biolabs PHA action item management system companies should ensure that PHA recommendations are assigned to appropriate personnel with a deadline for initial evaluation the rationale for recommendation modification or rejection must be documented and the status of all action items or recommendations should be tracked until completion such a process ensures that findings and recommendations from phas are effectively acted upon and appropriately managed the third safety issue found at biolab Lake Charles is emergency preparedness and response the CSP found that biolab relied on hose stations fire hydrants and monitors in the event of an emergency and its fire protection system used four sequentially operated pumps to supply water from a reservoir to fire suppression equipment at the time of the incident one of those pumps was not functional one was powered by Diesel and two ran on electricity biolab relied on a backup generator to power those two electric pumps in the event of a power outage but the csb learned that biolabs backup generator was not working before the hurricane therefore the company rented a generator in preparation for Hurricane Laura with electricity knocked out at biolab and the surrounding area the company needed to use this rental backup generator to operate the electric fire water pumps on the day of the incident but the csb found that biolab Personnel struggled to activate the rental generator or transfer power from it and did not have a manual or operating procedure to help them troubleshoot the issues so the company could not run the electric pumps as a result only one fire pump a diesel pump was available for biolabs response therefore the water pressure to the fire protection system was too low to suppress the decomposing material the decomposition and fire could not be controlled until a third-party emergency response contractor arrived with equipment capable of effectively responding to the incident this was over 5 hours from when biolab first contacted 911 companies must ensure that emergency response equipment is fully operational and can function when needed during emergencies companies should adequately maintain the equipment and repair or replace equipment in a timely manner companies must also ensure employees are trained on how to use the Emergency Equipment the fourth safety issue that csb highlights in its report is adherence to applicable hazardous materials codes the csb found that because biolab Lake Charles was storing and handling large quantities of a tcca based formulation it should have implemented extra precautions as required by applicable hazardous materials codes in this case the applicable codes are set by the National Fire Protection Association and are known as NFPA 101 and NFPA 400 NFPA 101 requires an automatic sprinkler or other protection designed to minimize danger to occupants before they have time to evacuate from high-hazard occupancies NFPA 400 specifies sprinkler systems among other requirements for building storing hazardous materials but the csb found that biolab lacked those extra precautions had the biolab facility met the two NFPA code requirements it likely would have begun applying large amounts of water to the decomposing chemical much earlier this earlier response could have reduced the amount of material that decomposed reduced the amount of chlorine released and reduce the extent of the facility damage and finally the fifth safety issue identified by the csb is regulatory coverage of reactive chemical hazards tcca based formulations are reactive chemicals that have the potential to decompose and release toxic chlorine gas but tcca is not listed for coverage under OSHA's PSM standard or the epa's risk management program rule therefore biolab was not required to implement Baseline process Safety Management System elements under these specific regulations the CSP has long been concerned about the regulatory Gap in coverage of reactive chemicals which has led to many serious incidents over the past three decades those incidents cause deaths injuries and significant property damage the csb continues to investigate incidents that could have been prevented with more robust regulatory coverage of reactive chemicals both the OSHA PSM and EPA rmp regulations should be amended to close the regulatory Gap identified by the csb in its report the csb reiterated a recommendation previously made to OSHA to amend the process Safety Management standard to achieve more comprehensive control of reactive hazards that could have catastrophic consequences and the csb also reiterated a recommendation to the EPA to revise the accidental release prevention requirements to explicitly cover catastrophic reactive hazards that have the potential to seriously impact the public the incident at biolab could have been prevented companies must be prepared for the hazards extreme weather can present at their facilities and Regulatory bodies should do more to address reactive chemical risks these steps will help ensure that similar incidents never occur thank you for watching the Cs B safety video for more information please visit csb.