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American Chemistry Council Releases Process Safety Code Performance Measures for its 190 Members from 1996 - 1999

 
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) identifies itself as "the voice of the US Chemical Industry," representing the chemical industry on public policy issues, coordinating the industry's research and testing programs, and administering the industry's environmental, health, and safety performance improvement initiative (Responsible Care). The have granted AcuSafe permission to share some of its incident data from participating member companies. 

In 1995, ACC adopted the Process Safety Code Performance Measure, requiring its member companies to report annually on process safety incidents that meet their criteria. Data from over 190 companies and 1500 facilities is available from 1996 to 1999. An incident satisfies the reporting threshold test if a process was actually involved in the event and at least one of the following is true: 

Fire: There is a fire that causes damage exceeding $25,000, where damage is defined as replacement cost for property and equipment on-site and off-site that is damaged in the incident. Business interruption loss, product loss, and environmental clean-up costs are not included; or

Explosion: There is an explosion that causes damage exceeding $25,000, where damage is defined as replacement cost for property and equipment on-site and off-site that is damaged in the incident. Business interruption loss, product loss, and environmental clean-up costs are not included. For this purpose, the term "explosion" includes both detonations and overpressures; or

Chemical Release: There is an episodic loss of containment of greater than the threshold quantity of material listed in 40 CFR 355.40 Appendix A or an episodic loss of containment of greater than 5,000 lbs of flammable material; or

Injury/Fatality: 

–    There is a fire, explosion, or chemical release that does not trigger the thresholds above, but that involves one or more fatalities or serious injuries. A serious injury is defined for this purpose as a "lost workday case with days away from work" (for either the facility's or a contractor's employees) for OSHA injury record keeping, or that involves overnight hospitalization for non-employees; or

–    There is one or more lost-time injury or fatality of an employee or contractor that directly results from the release of energy or material from a process, including chemical storage, while the process is not in normal operation. This includes operations such as pressure testing, cleaning, and maintenance.

Their data shows a consistent decline between 1996 and 1999 in the total number of reportable incidents and a less consistent but discernible improvement in the number of incidents with offsite impacts.

Reported Incident: 1996 - 1999

Cumulative Change between 1996 and 1999: -17.9%

Number of Incidents Involving Offsite Impacts

Cumulative change between 1996 and 1999: -9.8. 

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