VOICES - Richard A. Clarke, who worked on national security for three presidents, recently wrote a book called Your Government Failed You about the failures of the intelligence communities to take seriously the gathering threat before 9/11.
Our lawmakers are notorious for taking action after some catastrophe or near-catastrophe. As an example, now we’re all walking through airports barefoot, because some would-be terrorist had packed a bomb in his shoe.
We’ve had some civil liberties eroded, we can’t take our own water on planes, and we may have to assume the risk of whole-body scans, because of some event or threat that preceded the new requirement. Something similar is happening now.
Back in 1984 there was a serious industrial accident in Bhopal, India, when a Union Carbide plant accidentally released a strong poison, called methyl isocyanate (MIC), which escaped the plant and resulted in an estimated 5,000 deaths, and 50,000 related injuries.
As a result, in 1986 Congress passed, as an amendment to Superfund, (which was originally passed in reaction to Love Canal) the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, or EPCRA.
This required law companies that handled specific toxic materials, over certain amounts, to report in various ways, some of which were (and still are) available to the public. (Check out EPA.gov/tri/) As part of changes to the EPCRA law, in 1999 companies had to submit a Risk Management Plan, which contained a requirement to report a ‘Worst Case Scenario.’
This scenario assessed, according to EPA Guidance, what the risk would be to populations surrounding the company, if there was a release. The specifics about how to comply are found in the EPA regulations at 40 CFR 68.
The EPA Guidance specifies how to define a worst case release and ways to calculate the effect. Although the EPCRA law first dealt only with toxics, later flammable materials were added. (Duh.)
(As another irony, although the law was called the ‘Community Right-to-know Act,’ after 9/11, through fear of that information getting into the wrong hands, the EPA and the LA Fire Department restricted public access to the companies’ responses to the Risk Management information.)
I’m part of a group of activists who have been trying to remove an LPG facility, which probably represents one of the greatest risks in the LA area, the Rancho LLC (it means ‘limited liability company’ – one of the things we’re concerned about) facility in San Pedro.
Earlier this year we finally received a copy of Rancho’s Risk Management Plan from the EPA. (I credit Congresswoman Laura Richardson for this turnaround in the EPA’s informal policies.)
I have a background in environmental compliance, having worked in that capacity for Conoco and then Fletcher Oil and later ran my own environmental consulting company, where I had several oil companies as my clients.
So, when I reviewed Rancho’s Risk Plan and especially its worst case scenario, it became obvious that they had greatly understated the risk, if they followed the guidelines.
They reported a blast radius of a half mile, and that 770 residents would be affected. The actual calculation, if 57,000,000 lbs. (their number, the contents of one tank) of butane is released, produces a blast radius of three miles and an estimated 27,000 residents. Three miles from the Rancho facility would extend to the Terminal Island Freeway to the east, and destroy most of the port to the south!
I pointed out this discrepancy, and other deficiencies in the Rancho risk plan, in a letter to the EPA in San Francisco, but have not received a reply. Later, I was given a copy of a letter from the EPA to Rancho, dated February 6, 2009, saying that their Risk Management Plan is “complete” (“complete” is in quotes in the EPA letter.)
Then the EPA qualifies this acceptance letter by saying: “The completion check does not assess whether a submitted RMP should have provided additional information or whether the information it provides is accurate or appropriate. (emphasis added) In other words, it does not indicate that the RMP meets the requirements of 40 CFR Part 68.”
As a final blow, the EPA letter is not even signed!
The EPA letter closes, pointing out that, if Rancho wants more information, they should contact their ‘Implementing Agency’, which they name as the California Office of Emergency Services, phone 916 464 3281. So, the EPA passes the buck where enforcement is concerned.
Actually, California OES, now Cal Emergency Management Agency or CalEMA, had already passed the buck, taking its cue from the EPA, by making a vague ‘Administering Agency’ responsible for enforcing the Federal and the state version of risk management and emergency response.
It turns out that the Administering Agency is the LA City and LA County Fire Departments. (If you check out the CalEMA and CUPA web sites you’ll find a mish-mash of ‘Administering Agencies’ in California.)
Cal EMA wrote the state’s version of the rules, first trying to cobble together all the requirements under its “Certified Unified Program Agency.” That has not worked out very well, chiefly because Fire Departments already have their work set out for them – fighting fires, and then emergency medical care piled on top.
And, they haven’t the manpower or the expertise to do the job of mathematically evaluating risk for all the thousands of facilities within their jurisdiction.
So, what does CalEMA do? They wrote a whole new set of risk rules called Cal ARPs (Accidental Release Program), which repeat the Federal requirments, mostly. But, it just moves the confusion about enforcement forward in time.
When the CUPA laws were written in 1993 and 4, I attended rule-workshops held by OES and other agencies, at which firemen from different jurisdictions were present. At those meetings the firemen said they couldn’t handle this new responsibility, because of lack of manpower and expertise. But their statements were ignored in the final rules.
We are left then, with an elaborate system of laws and rules at the Federal, state, and local level that are supposed to evaluate and reduce risk to the public, that no one is actually enforcing!
As an industry representative interfacing with agencies, I, and others, often made the point that environmental regulations were only fair when every member of an industry and every industry that contributed to the problem was held to the same standard. Some companies must have generated a genuine risk management plan that probably resulted in some reduction of risk to the public. This probably cost them some money. If they had only known that the rules would never be enforced, they could have saved that money!
So, we’re left with a facility in Rancho LLC which has the capacity to destroy 28 sq. miles of property, and almost 10 times more lives than were lost on 9/11! That’s according to the correct calculation found in the EPA Guidance.
But, actually, if one tank ruptures, in all likelihood the rest of the facility will be involved in the conflagration, making the blast radius 10 miles and the area 314 sq. miles. Quest Consultants, Rancho’s choice, has agreed with the calculations of one of us activists, that this site has the energy of 53 atomic bombs.
Our government has let us down by allowing this facility to be sited here in the first place. It let us down by writing onerous rules that it then doesn’t enforce. It let us down by not dealing with a problem – a sort of time bomb – that puts a large piece of the city, including its money-making Port, at serious risk.
If you ever thought that government agencies were protecting you and your family, rethink that. Only when the public holds politicians and regulators to their sworn duty can democracy really work. Think about it.
Several politicians or regulators have asked us what we want them to do. My answer is, if they survive the explosion of the Rancho LPG Terminal, think of what they will tell themselves they should have done. It should never have been built there. Now it should be removed to some remote location.
(Connie Rutter is a retired oil industry environmental consultant. Janet Gunter is a long time community activist and member of the San Pedro Peninsula Homeowners United Inc. The SPPHU was one of the litigants in the successful China Shipping lawsuit that was represented by the NRDC in 2001-2003 on the issue of air pollution and aesthetics. )
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 68
Pub: Aug 24, 2012