We’ve written a lot in recent months about the fallout from the August explosion that killed two workers at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute. (See previous posts here, here and here).

Recently, though, there’s been some more information come out that raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the U.S. EPA program intended to protect communities and the environment from chemical plant leaks, explosions and fires.

Investigators from the EPA Inspector General’s office issued a report that outlines a variety of problems in the agency’s “risk management program,” or RMP. The RMP was created as an amendment to the 1990 Clean Air Act. It required certain industrial facilities to file Risk Management Plans designed to “reduce the likelihood of airborne chemical releases that could harm the public, and mitigate the consequences of releases that do occur.”

In a 50-page report, IG officials  found that EPA has not established a way of figuring out what facilities should submit RMPs and whether they did. Worse yet, the IG found, EPA does not have a good track record of auditing the RMPs that are filed, or following up on the written plans with on-site investigations.

The IG found that more than half of the high-risk facilities — those with larger stockpiles of dangerous chemicals and more people living nearby — have never been inspected. In fact, 162 facilities that could harm 100,000 or more people have never been inspected by EPA, according to the IG report.

Of course, we know that OSHA has repeated cited the Institute plant for violations of its separate “process safety management” rules, which are kind of a sister set of requirements to the RMPs. But no one at EPA has said whether officials there are taking any sort of look at the Institute plant’s RMP compliance.

The good-government group OMB Watch noted that the EPA IG report makes a good case for more accountability in the RMP program. “However, EPA has refused to provide program data online, reducing the public’s ability to ensure the safety of vulnerable communities,” OMB Watch said.  Also, OMB Watch reported:

The agency removed the plans from its website shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Despite rulemaking changes reportedly designed to re-establish online access, the plans remain offline. EPA’s public access is limited to in-person visits to regional reading rooms. Each individual is limited to viewing ten RMPs a month and may take handwritten notes, but is otherwise prohibited from copying the documents or removing them from the reading room. The only remaining online access for RMP information is the Right-to-Know Network at rtknet.org, a collection of environmental databases operated by OMB Watch. OMB Watch secured access to RMP information as a result of legal action two years ago under the Freedom of Information Act and provides access to all sections of the RMPs except for the Off-Site Consequence Analysis portion, also known as the Worst Case Scenario, which is prohibited from being distributed electronically.

Failure to disclose this information diminishes accountability both of facilities and of the agency overseeing the program. Public disclosure of government information creates pressure on agencies to properly carry out their responsibilities in implementing programs such as the Risk Management Program. When the disclosure is stopped or strongly curtailed, the government also eliminates a significant driver for strong program management. Broader public disclosure of RMPs might have brought some of the problems discovered in the OIG report to light sooner. Withholding emergency response plans also defeats the purpose of the entire program – to better protect the public from possible chemical emergencies. Emergency plans are useless if not disseminated to the public before an emergency.

Speaking of secrecy, West Virginia Public Broadcasting remined us yesterday that Kanawha Valley residents might not get the full story later this month when the federal Chemical Safety Board holds a public meeting on the Bayer explosion and fire. Safety board officials are going to run their findings by the U.S. Coast Guard before making them public, to try to appease Bayer complaints that the disclosures could violate secrecy provisions of federal maritime law. Remember, Bayer has a barge facility at the Institute plant.

Remember, the CSB meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the West Virginia State University Wilson Building, Multipurpose Room, 103 University Union, Institute, WV, 25112. The meeting is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is not required, but to assure adequate seating attendees are encouraged to pre-register by emailing their names and affiliations  by April 10.

Another bit of Bayer news: The House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce has changed its hearing on the Bayer explosion to April 21, eliminating a conflict with the CSB meeting.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Chemical industry, Environment, Worker safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.