ITEMS OF INTEREST TO SMALL BUSINESS

Please Visit Our Sponsors:

Chief Michael L. Smith
Emergency Management Director
10 Loring Drive, Framingham, MA 01702
Phone: 508-620-4942, Fax: 508-620-4946

ITEMS OF INTEREST TO SMALL BUSINESS

FROM THE CHEMICAL EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND PREVENTION OFFICE

December 1998

Our Homepage: www.epa.gov/ceppo

Risk Management Program:

As you may have already heard, EPA and the FBI have decided not to post RMP Offsite Consequence Analysis data on the Internet site that will provide public access to risk management plans. The key compliance message for your small business constituents is that they must still submit their worst-case and alternative scenarios to EPA - they just won’t be made publicly available via the Internet. We are currently working with a group of industry, local/state government, trade association and non-profit representatives to explore ways that the public can get access to this information at the local level. I’ve attached a letter announcing our decision to Congress.

RMP*Submit - the submission software for risk management plans - will be available on our website beginning January 4th, 1999. About 2-3 weeks later, businesses can get a copy of the disks from our publications warehouse at 800-490-9198. Next week, we will have a brochure available for downloading off our homepage that gives your clients all the information they need to submit their RMPs. We suggest that you download a copy of this brochure and send it out to your clients and/or incorporate it into your newsletters.

The updated "List of Lists" is currently available on our homepage. It was revised recently to reference 112r listed chemicals. Your clients will find it useful as a one-stop-shopping list for CERCLA 103, TRI, EPCRA and RMP listed chemicals.

We’re happy to tell you that several RMP guidances that are focused on small businesses have recently been issued: wastewater treatment, small propane retailers and users, propane distributors, and ammonia refrigeration system operators. Please let your members know that these guidances have been released — and were developed with the help of experts in their respective industries. Check out our website for copies.

I’d like to call your attention to a new Office of Enforcement publication: the "Enforcement Alert". Periodically OE will issue lessons-learned from cases that we have litigated or settled. The latest alert (which I have attached - and must be launched using adobe acrobat) gives you information on the Terra Industries Inc. explosion which killed four workers, injured 18 and forced the evacuation of 2,500 resident. The explosion released approximately 4,200 tons of anhydrous ammonia and 100 tons of nitric acid. This Alert gives you information about the case - which was EPA’s first concluded judicial action under the General Duty Clause - and tips for your clients on addressing ammonium nitrate hazards.

You may have heard that EPA has been subject to a blitz of letters written by propane

retailers to their congressional representatives. The key message is that propane is still subject to 112(r) regulations and risk management planning should proceed apace. I’ve attached a sample letter that we are sending back to propane retailers that have written their congressperson.

EPCRA: EPA intends to move forward on a final rule addressing only the issue of EPCRA 311/312 reporting for retail gas stations. Our current timetable is for a February 1999 publication date in the Federal Register. We intend to have the effective date be tied to publication of the final rule in the FR: this would affect 1998 reports (due March 1, 1999) that retail gas stations must submit if we keep to our current timetable. Please keep in mind that eleventh hour events can always happen - and delay issuance of a final rule until after March 1st.

The fine print on this proposal is important: retail gas stations in states with more stringent requirements still may be required to report inventories of gas and diesel fuel and the LEPC may ask a facility to provide MSDS or Tier II data for any substance subject to the rule regardless of the quantity on site.

Advise your clients to stay tuned to our webpage (by December 14th, we’ll have put up a bulletin on our "What's New" page that will be updated as events warrant) or to their trade association for developments.