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30 Years Ago

A LOOK BACK TO JULY 1992

THE JULY 1992 number of HCB was not badged as a North American issue in particular, as it is today, but it still led with a report from contributor Susan Saltzman on discussions at the HMAC Annual Conference, which had taken place in May in Arlington, Virginia. These days HMAC is DGAC and its annual event has shifted to the fall but in those days it was the main event for learning about North American regulations.

And the 1992 conference generated a significant surprise. Mexico, which had hitherto only regulated rail transport in its domestic affairs and even that not very stringently, announced that it was to adopt the provisions in the US Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) for road transport in the country. The impetus for this change of heart appeared to have come from the deadly pipeline explosion in Guadalajara in April, which killed more than 300 people – although quite why a pipeline incident should lead to road regulations remains unclear.

In his comment piece, editor Mike Corkhill wondered why the Mexican authorities had not take the step after the even more deadly LPG explosion in Mexico City in 1984. He also noted that there was to be a very short implementation period, with industry given only six months to comply, and pondered if this – not unprecedented – kneejerk reaction by the regulators was going to lead to good regulation.

Mexico was not alone in taking such steps, though its counterparts in Canada had allowed some time for reflection after the Mississauga train derailment in 1979, which released a large cloud of chlorine and necessitated the evacuation of nearly a quarter of a million people. That incident had also spurred the nation’s chemical industry to clean up its act and, in order to demonstrate that to the public, had come up with the idea of ‘Responsible Care’. That concept was quickly taken up south of the border and by 1992 the US Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) made adherence to the programme a condition of members.

With its own regulatory regime more well established, the US was at the time keeping up to date with technical developments and, as Al Roberts, associate administrator at the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA, the forerunner of PHMSA), explained, one priority was to get those new-fangled IBCs covered in HMR. The July 1992 issue also contained a feature on IBCs, mainly the metal units still then widely used.

Two other rulemakings going through the regulatory mill involved the idea of adopting IMO’s requirements for marine pollutants for all transport modes in the US, and the first appearance in HMR of provisions requiring the training of personnel involved in the movement and handling of hazardous materials.

On his retirement from RSPA some years later, Al Roberts took up the invitation to become president of HMAC, so he could continue to use his expertise in the field; in 1992, Susan Saltzman had also recently retired from her long-standing role as hazardous materials consultant at the Du Pont Company and had started offering her own expertise as a consultant to the wider industry. Her efforts to improve regulatory compliance were recognised during the HMAC Annual Conference when she was named recipient of that year’s George L Wilson Award.

30 YEARS AGO

A LOOK BACK TO AUGUST 1992

THIRTY YEARS AGO HCB had a bigger editorial team and a publisher hungry for income so we did not get any time off over the summer and had to get together another full issue to go out in August – notwithstanding the widespread absence of readers that month, particularly in much of Europe. Still, as ever there was plenty to talk about, beginning with the European Commission’s belated realisation that, if the seemingly unstoppable increase in the volume of freight traffic were to be handled, more use should be made of shortsea shipping. Today, the advantages offered by greater use of ro-ro and ro-pax vessels around the coast of Europe seem to be being discovered all over again, as a way not only of avoiding road congestion and the endemic driver shortage but also of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport of freight.

Elsewhere in the August 1992 issue there was a lot of coverage of the bulk liquids storage sector, with reports from the ILTA conference and trade show in Houston in June. There was one presentation made there that was perhaps an early indication of the way that the chemical industry was going in its adoption of the Responsible Care principles, with Union Carbide’s European logistics director Peter Pilkington explaining how Cefic was developing its Safety and Quality Rating System (SQRS) in the chemical distribution chain. That system has over the years morphed into SQAS, applying to all sectors of the chemical logistics chain and these days also covering issues surrounding security and sustainability.

In 1992, Cefic was already planning to establish the Chemical Distribution Institute (CDI) to service the Terminal Rating System (TRS), with the aim of having it up and running by mid-1993. It took a little longer than that and, initially, CDI only dealt with the maritime sector. Its remit soon widened, however, and it is still offering terminal audits through the CDI-T scheme around the world. Pilkington also mentioned that Cefic was working closely with the US Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) to ensure that standards and procedures in the US and Europe would be comparable.

Further south, the government of the Australian state of Victoria was still investigating the devastating fire at the Terminals Pty storage terminal at Coode Island, Melbourne; part of that investigation included consideration of the possible benefits of moving the chemical storage facilities – of which there were seven at Coode Island – to another location. In the event, that relocation never happened and the ‘island’, which has been connected to the mainland since the 1930s, remains a focus for port and terminal activities.

In 1992, the Victoria police were strongly considering sabotage as the cause of the fire, which started in a storage tank containing acrylonitrile but spread rapidly through a common vent system to other tanks containing benzene, cyclohexane, phenol and other chemicals; it created a dense and toxic cloud that floated over nearby residential areas before being dispersed by strong winds.

As an adjunct to our report on that incident, HCB also noted that the responders had to invent ways to deal with the massive volume of firewater run-off from the site, something that had to be learned all over again when the Buncefield oil depot in the UK went up in flames in 2005.

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