Industrial Plant Safety

Hazards of hot work-CSB issues safety bulletin

Sam — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:50:52 +0000

This blog has consistently pointed out that many people working in industry seem to be unaware about the dangers of doing any “hot” work in a plant without a “gas test”. Despite several disasters that have been directly caused due to following this simple rule, nobody seems to have learnt lessons. The US Chemical Safety Board now has come up with a safety bulletin, outlining the recent case of the fatal accident at the PCA corrugated mill in Wisconsin, that was apparently caused by not checking for explosive gases with a portable explosive gas monitor, before commencing welding operations. The tank was also not classified as a hazardous area, despite it being used to store explosive and flammable materials.

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The CSB has issued a safety bulletin that details the incident, as well as precautionary measures that should be taken to avoid such incidents from recurring. Here is a partial text of the press release given below.

Wausau, Wisconsin, March 4, 2010 – The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) today issued a safety bulletin warning of the hazards of conducting hot work in a variety of industries and identifying seven key lessons aimed at preventing worker deaths during hot work in and around storage tanks containing flammable materials.

Hot work is defined as any work activity that involves burning, welding, cutting, brazing, grinding, soldering, or similar spark-producing operations that can ignite a flammable atmosphere

The CSB began investigating hot work hazards following an explosion that occurred on July 29, 2008, at the Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) corrugated cardboard mill in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, which killed three maintenance workers and injured another. The CSB determined the explosion resulted from welding above an 80-foot-tall storage tank that contained highly flammable hydrogen gas – the product of bacterial decomposition of organic fiber waste inside the tank.

At the time of the accident, PCA did not recognize waste fiber tanks as potentially hazardous or require combustible gas monitoring prior to welding nearby. PCA, which fully cooperated with the CSB investigation, subsequently developed new company standards requiring gas monitoring before any hot work.

“Hot work around flammable gas or vapor is one of the most common causes of worker deaths that we see at the Chemical Safety Board,” said CSB Board Member William B. Wark. ”Tragically, most of these accidents are readily preventable with better hazard assessments, proper gas monitoring, and other straightforward safety measures.”

In the ten months following the explosion at Packaging Corporation, the CSB deployed investigators to five other sites where hot work ignited flammable gas or vapor, including an explosion at MAR Oil in La Rue, Ohio, that killed two contractors in October 2008; an explosion that killed one and injured another at EMC Used Oil in Miami, Florida, in December 2008; an explosion that killed a contract welder at ConAgra Foods in Boardman, Oregon, in February 2009; an explosion at A.V. Thomas Produce in Atwater, California, in March 2009 that severely burned two employees; and the explosion of a massive gasoline storage tank that killed three workers at a TEPPCO Partners fuel distribution facility in Garner, Arkansas, in May 2009.

The CSB also collected information from the Honolulu Fire Department about a fatal hot work explosion at a waste oil company in October 2008 and noted findings from previous major hot work explosions in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Florida, and Mississippi that were investigated by the CSB or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Companies need to develop comprehensive systems for controlling the hazards of hot work where flammable vapor could be present,” said CSB Investigations Supervisor Don Holmstrom, who led the investigations. ”Regulators, companies, and workers should recognize that combustible gas monitoring will save lives. A common feature of virtually all these accidents is the failure to recognize all the locations where a flammable atmosphere could be present. The absence of flammables needs to be verified before and during any hot work.”

Combustible gas monitors are relatively inexpensive, handheld electronic instruments that measure the amount of flammable material in the atmosphere, expressed as a percentage of the lower explosive limit. Proper training and calibration are essential for using gas monitors effectively.

The safety bulletin, entitled “Seven Key Lessons to Prevent Worker Deaths During Hot Work In and Around Tanks,” notes that the CSB has identified over 60 fatalities since 1990 due to explosions and fires from hot work activities on tanks. Mr. Holmstrom said those accidents have continued to occur since May 2009, the date of the last explosion covered in the bulletin.

Industries where hot work explosions have occurred include food processing, pulp and paper manufacturing, oil production and recycling, waste treatment, fuel storage and distribution.

Kleen Energy Explosion-CSB issues report

Rick — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:07:12 +0000

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Feb 25, 2010- The CSB has released a preliminary report about their findings in the Kleen energy power plant explosion that caused fatalities and injuries. Here is the text of the news conference.

The gist of the findings are that companies must take sufficient care to ensure that gas or explosive/inflammable vapors do not happen at all and if they do, they should not meet an ignition source. This is well known to engineers and technicians in the process industries, but apparently it took actual explosions to bring home the truth.

KleenEnergyLeakPhoto

CSB Statement

Good morning I am CSB Lead Investigator Don Holmstrom; thank you for coming to this CSB news conference. The Chemical Safety Board is an independent federal agency that investigates and reports to the public on the causes of major chemical accidents at industrial sites across the country. The CSB is headed by five board members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The CSB’s reports and safety recommendations to Congress, federal and state regulators, and industry are widely followed and applied throughout the United States. Our mission is to prevent disastrous accidents of the kind that occurred here less than three weeks ago.

The safety issues raised by this accident are not limited to Connecticut. These issues are larger than any particular company, facility, or individual. The U.S. has embarked an ambitious construction effort for new natural gas power plants. Thousands and thousands of workers across the country will be involved in constructing these plants. The safety of these workers and the nation’s energy independence are at stake as these gas-fired plants are built over the next 20 years.

The CSB has a team of ten here investigating at the Kleen Energy accident site. On behalf of all of us at the CSB, we extend our deepest condolences to the families of Ronald Crabb, Peter Chepulis, Raymond Dobratz, Kenneth Haskell, Christopher Walters and Roy Rushton. The goal of the CSB investigation is that terrible accidents like this will not happen again and that no families will suffer such tremendous losses in the future.

The CSB team arrived at the site on February 8th. Since that time, the CSB team has conducted a large number of interviews, reviewed documents, and closely examined the accident site on numerous occasions. We appreciate the outstanding cooperation from the workers at this facility, who despite living through such a horrible ordeal have provided valuable information to CSB investigators.

This accident occurred during a planned work activity to clean debris from natural gas pipes at the plant. To remove the debris, workers used natural gas at a high pressure of approximately 650 pounds per square inch. The high velocity of the natural gas flow was intended to remove any debris in the new piping. At pre-determined locations, this gas was vented to the atmosphere through open pipe ends which were located less than 20 feet off the ground. These vents were adjacent to the main power generation building and along the south wall. The open pipe ends are visible here in the photographs.

You can actually see the high-pressure gas venting out of one of these open pipe ends in this photograph taken a short time before the accident on February 7.

This cleaning practice is known within the natural gas power industry as a “gas blow.” Industry personnel have indicated to CSB investigators that gas blows are a common practice during the commissioning of new or modified gas pipes at their facilities.

CSB investigators have reviewed gas utility records for the morning of the accident. These records together with written pipe cleaning procedures and witness testimony confirm that the gas blows occurred intermittently over the course of the morning. At the same time that gas blows were underway, there were potential ignition sources present in the surrounding area, including inside the power plant building. There were many construction-related activities underway inside the building.

Determining the exact ignition source is not a major focus of our investigation at this point. In most industrial worksites, ignition sources are abundant and efforts at accident prevention focus first and foremost on avoiding or controlling the release of flammable gas or vapor.

Initial calculations by CSB investigators reveal that approximately 400,000 standard cubic feet of gas were released to the atmosphere near the building in the final ten minutes before the blast.

That is enough natural gas to fill the entire volume of a pro-basketball arena with an explosive natural gas-air mixture, from the floor to the ceiling.

This gas was released into a congested area next to the power block building. This congested area likely slowed the dispersion of the gas. The gas built up above the lower explosive limit of approximately 4% in air and was ignited by an undetermined ignition source.

In the days since the accident, companies and safety regulators from around the world have contacted the CSB asking about the circumstances of this devastating accident. Some companies, including a power plant here in the region, indicated that they themselves have been planning similar gas blows as part of commissioning pipes in the very near future.

A major focus of the CSB investigation is to determine what regulations, codes, and good practices might apply to these gas blows. To this point, no specific codes have been identified, but we are continuing our research.

In the meantime, we strongly caution natural gas power plants and other industries against the venting of high-pressure natural gas in or near work sites. This practice, although common, is inherently unsafe.

The CSB is investigating possible alternatives to this practice, including the use of air, steam, nitrogen, or water or the use of combustion devices to safely destroy the gas. Combustion devices like flares can safely burn up flammable gas or vapor, preventing the possibility of an explosion.

Recommending safer alternatives will be a primary focus of the CSB investigation as we move forward.

Just three days prior to this tragic accident, the Chemical Safety Board recommended changes to the National Fuel Gas Code to prevent disastrous explosions involving gas purging. We note with great appreciation that just yesterday, at a meeting in San Francisco, the NFPA panel responsible for the fuel gas code voted to move forward with the CSB’s recommendations to make purging practices safer at work sites across America. These provisions will apply at hundreds of thousands of facilities, once fully adopted.

The type of purging described in that code is different from the gas blows used in the power industry, and power plants remain exempt from the national fuel gas code. However, gas purging as defined in the code has certain similarities to gas blows, in that gas is applied at one end of a pipe and gas is intentionally vented at the other end to the atmosphere.

There is an underlying common theme among the tragic accidents at Kleen Energy, the ConAgra Slim Jim plant in North Carolina, the Ford River Rouge power plant in Michigan, the Hilton Hotel in San Diego, and many other purging-related accidents. Companies must ensure that flammable gases are not vented into close proximity with ignition sources and workers. That is a vital safety message from all these tragedies.

We encourage the gas power industry to closely study the very positive actions recommended by the NFPA and the American Gas Association committees yesterday. The CSB investigation will focus on determining what permanent changes in standards or practices are needed to prevent future accidents involving gas blows.

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Download the Safety Instrumented Systems training demo for free

Sam — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:19:44 +0000

Miami,FL Feb 23,2010—- Now you can download the first module of the seven module Safety Instrumented Systems e-learning course that has been recently launched by Abhisam Software, for free. Just visit the Safety Instrumented Systems training page here and near the top you can see a download link below the picture of a box shot.

Simply right click on it and select “Save Target”, it will be downloaded to your computer. It will only work on Windows though, not Mac. And you may need administrative rights to run it if you’re using Vista as it is a program and not just a document file.

The full course consists of seven modules, that are much bigger and more detailed than this one, which is just an introduction to get you started. Since Safety Instrumented Systems are growing in importance every year ( as they help plants comply to more stringent regulations that aim to protect people, the environment and of course assets from damage and destruction) it is a good idea to be updated about how these things work, rather than looking at it as a black box that does “safety”. Learning about SIS in more detail can give you an edge over other professionals who are still ignorant about these newer concepts.

If your plant has hazardous or other processes that require the installation of Safety Instrumented Systems to conform to OSHA and other regulations, or if you wish to comply to other international standards like IEC 61511, etc then this subject is very important to know.

Comments on this post are welcome as always.

A Practical Guide to Hazardous Area Classification

Rick — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:32:47 +0000

Miami-FL, Feb 16, 2010- If you are looking for a practical guide to Hazardous Area Classification, then look no further.There is a new ebook in a flip page format (just looks like a real book), that has all the essential information that you need to know about area classification.

As you must have known by now, area classification is very important to industries and facilities that handle, store or otherwise process hazardous (flammable liquids and vapors). Also, if a facility is handling large amounts of dusts (like grain dust or coal dust), then it needs to be classified also as a hazardous area, with the code that is applicable to dusts. This classification can be sometimes very intimidating and even confusing, what with the plethora of varying standards and codes. The IEC system and the North American (NEC) systems are covered for vapors, gases, as well as dusts. Actual real life area classification drawings are provided, that really area a help, as compared to the same stale figures that are repeated in all publications.

This guide is a fast start to your area classification exercise. It is always a good safety practice to review the hazardous area classification of an industrial facility, every few years, due to the changes, modifications in equipment or new layouts that have now become a permanent development in most plants. If the area classification was done ages ago, then it is better to review it once again, to confirm that the old classification still holds, or to change it if necessary.

This guide provides a very concise overview and even provides a step by step procedure that was followed while doing an area classification. Definitely a must have book for understanding area classification.

Also, since a trial version is available, you can download and see for yourself immediately. Click here to get it.

Note that you will require a DNL reader to view it (similar to Adobe reader but much better), you can get it from here.

Kleen Energy Power Plant Explosion-CSB deploys investigation team

Sam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:07:16 +0000

Washington, DC, February 7, 2010 - The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is deploying a seven-person team to the site of a fatal explosion at the Kleen Energy Plant in Middletown, Connecticut. The team is expected on site midday on Monday, February 8.

According to media reports, the explosion at approximately 11:30 a.m. resulted in multiple fatalities and injuries and caused off-site damage.

CSB lead investigator Don Holmstrom said, “The CSB’s investigative team will examine the activities that were ongoing at the time of this accident, including any gas purging, as indicated by initial media reports.”

At a public meeting on Thursday, February 4, the CSB issued urgent recommendations that the national fuel gas codes be changed to improve safety when gas pipes are being purged - cleared of air - during maintenance or the installation of new piping. The Board’s urgent recommendations resulted from the CSB’s ongoing federal investigation into the June 9, 2009, natural gas explosion at the ConAgra Slim Jim production facility in Garner, North Carolina, which caused four deaths, three critical life-threatening burn injuries, and other injuries that sent a total of 67 people to the hospital.

The CSB issued a safety bulletin on gas purging in October 2009, because of the occurrence of multiple serious accidents during purging operations. Key safety lessons described in the bulletin included purging gases to a safe location outdoors away from ignition sources, evacuating non-essential workers during purging, using combustible gas monitors to detect any hazardous gas accumulations, and effective training for personnel involved in purging operations.

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