Brattleboro, Vermont, Sept. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA) launched a report that profiles three chemical incidents that occurred inside two weeks this January, and recommends particular security measures that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ought to require so as to forestall future chemical disasters.
On August 31, 2022, the EPA revealed proposed revisions to the Risk Management Program (RMP), which regulates roughly 12,000 high-risk services within the U.S. that use or retailer extremely hazardous chemical substances. EPA was particularly directed by Congress to use this program to forestall disasters, but greater than 140 dangerous chemical incidents happen on common yearly.
On January 14, 2022, a fireplace at a warehouse in Passaic, New Jersey got here dangerously shut to igniting the adjoining Qualco Inc. facility the place an estimated 3 million kilos of hazardous chemical substances have been saved. According to hearth officers, this might have triggered “one of the most catastrophic chemical disasters in the region in recent history.” Facilities like Qualco Inc. aren’t at the moment lined by the EPA’s Risk Management Program regardless of storing giant chemical stockpiles. The facility was due to this fact not required beneath the RMP rule to report the hazardous chemical substances on web site to EPA, conduct a worst-case launch state of affairs evaluation, coordinate incident planning with native first responders, or contemplate measures to forestall a chemical disaster.
This April, Senator Cory Booker and 30 members of Congress urged the EPA to “implement robust prevention and safety standards to prevent chemical disasters,” comparable to increasing the Risk Management Program to cowl extra chemical substances. But the EPA’s proposed rule declines to take this step.
Preventing Disaster provides actionable suggestions the EPA ought to embrace in its last rule that might forestall comparable incidents from occurring sooner or later, together with:
- Expanding the Risk Management Program to cowl further hazardous chemical substances, and decrease the thresholds that may set off protection for chemical substances already included;
- Requiring all RMP services to contemplate, doc, and implement safer chemical substances and know-how;
- Requiring RMP services to not solely contemplate the dangers posed by pure hazards, as proposed within the draft rule, however to take significant steps to put together for these dangers, comparable to implementing backup energy for chemical manufacturing and storage processes.
“Overall,” the report concludes, “EPA’s draft rule, rather than adopting common-sense prevention requirements, continues to rely on voluntary actions by high-risk facilities. This approach has failed to prevent many chemical disasters over the last 25 years. If the draft rule is not strengthened, facility workers and neighbors across the country will continue to bear the human, environmental, and financial costs of more preventable disasters.”
“The EPA still has time to get this rule right,” stated Steve Taylor, Program Director for Coming Clean, who contributed to the report. “Communities at the fenceline of these hazardous facilities, and the workers inside them, are sick of industry stonewalling and EPA excuses. A stronger rule is needed to ensure that hazards are removed, or we will continue to see more chemical disasters.”
“We’re glad that EPA recognizes the need to reconsider the RMP rule; preventing disasters is a longstanding priority for EJHA. Unfortunately the draft rule is full of more voluntary measures, which decades of incidents have proven do not work.” stated Michele Roberts, National Co-Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. “We are depending on EPA to have the moral and political courage to keep the promises President Biden has made to our communities— that means a final rule that requires the transition to safer chemicals and processes wherever possible. Removing hazards before disasters can occur is the best way to protect workers and communities.”
Coming Clean and EJHA are a part of a broad coalition that features fenceline neighborhood members, well being professionals and members of Congress that has urged the EPA to undertake a stronger RMP rule for a few years. Members of this coalition will probably be vocalizing their priorities and issues on the draft rule at digital public hearings held by the EPA on September 26, 27 and 28, 2022.
# # #
Coming Clean is a collaborative community of frontline neighborhood activists, environmental well being and justice organizations, and coverage, science and market consultants, dedicated to remodeling the chemical business in order that it’s not a supply of hurt. For twenty years, we now have fought to finish legacy air pollution in communities of coloration, ban poisonous pesticides that hurt farmworkers and their households, regulate hazardous services, and finish the sale of unsafe merchandise in greenback shops and different retailers throughout the nation. Learn extra about our Chemical Disaster Prevention Program.
The Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform is a nationwide community of grassroots Environmental and Economic Justice organizations and advocates in communities which might be disproportionately impacted by poisonous chemical substances from legacy contamination, ongoing publicity to polluting services and health-harming chemical substances in family merchandise. EJHA helps a simply transition in the direction of safer chemical substances and a pollution-free economy that leaves no neighborhood or employee behind.
