Risk Management Plans (RMPs)
Bicoastal Challenges Face County
Chemical Safety Laws
Sanford
Lewis, Editor, Full Disclosure
By
June 1999, industries throughout the US will be required to
produce chemical accident prevention plans, known as Risk
Management Plans
(RMPs), in implementation of provisions of the Clean Air Act of
1990. The RMP requirements, as
implemented by
USEPA regulations, are controversial with community,
environmental and labor organizations due to the
failure of EPA to
require fundamental safeguards such as public participation,
disclosure of underlying safety studies and
technologies, and
application of inherently safer technologies.
Under pressure
from concerned citizens, and in response to specific incidents,
some local governments have begun filling the
gaps in this
regulatory framework, by establishing local laws and regulations
which establish mechanisms for participation,
disclosure and
use of best technologies. Now, a mere six months away from
the due date for the RMP's, on both coasts local
laws providing
corporate accountability on industrial safety issues are enmeshed
in major fights.
In Contra Costa
County, California, a "Good Neighbor" Ordinance
providing local oversight on refinery maintenance projects
may soon be
amended to require safety plans for entire local facilities.
But according to environmentalists watching the
amendment
process, the proposed revisions fall short of what is needed.
For instance, Denny Larson of Communities for a
Better
Environment said the county must require refineries to use the
best and safest technology, which, he said, would help
prevent accidents
like the 1993 General Chemical sulfuric acid leak in Richmond,
the 1994 Unocal catacarb leak in Rodeo and
the 1997
explosion at Tosco's refinery near Martinez that killed a worker.
Larson notes that
proposed industry-drafted amendments were promoted through
gathering of 20,000 signatures gathered by
misleading people
that they were signing to support "clean air", even
though the ordinance has nothing to do with that.
Instead of
passing the industry amendments, Larson urged the Contra Costa
Board of Supervisors to insert clear "Right to
Act"
provisions in the new refinery safety law. Proposed
revisions would allow plant employees or unions to call for a
county
audit of a
refinery's safety programs, and to require plants to use safer
chemicals and equipment unless they document that it is
not feasible to
do so.
On the east
coast, in Passaic, New Jersey, where a County Right to Act law
enacted in 1998 established a citizen inspection and
oversight
process, industry is campaigning for a repeal. Responding
to recent chemical accidents, including one that sent
children to the
hospital, the Passaic County law enables neighbors and workers to
set up Neighborhood Hazard Prevention
Advisory
Committees that can survey a facility of concern and make
recommendations for preventive measures. But Jim
Sinclair, First
Vice President of the NJ Business and Industry Association
stated, "Who in their right mind thinks it is good
public policy to
allow a self-appointed group of union activists and local
vigilantes to have unrestrained access to your private
property?
Why not abolish 1,000 years of private property
rights?" Industry has also called the law "socialistic
or even
communistic,"
a "nightmare" and "un-American."
In reality the
Passaic law's empaneling of a group of citizens is not a radical
innovation, but rather is an advisory process that
improves on the
chemical industry's Responsible Care "citizen advisory
panels" by ensuring that local citizens, not companies,
select oversight
groups. The law's survey provisions are not as strong as
other long-standing precedents such as citizen
inspection
provisions under the federal Surface Mining Control and
Reclamation Act, and the provisions of many of the Good
Neighbor
Agreements established at local industries throughout the U.S.
which not only have allowed citizen inspections but
also covered the
costs of citizens' independent experts.
The outcome of
these County struggles is worth watching. It seems likely
that what happens in these places may help to
inform future
action in many other locations.
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