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'Safe Neighborhoods Chemical Initiative' Puts Spotlight On Manufacturers Using Chemicals, Producing Hazardous Wastes MassDEP, Fire Services Team Up to Conduct Pilot Program Inspections
 Inspection teams from MassDEP and the Department of Fire Services (DFS) continue to conduct joint chemical facility evaluations as part of the new "Safe Neighborhoods Chemical Initiative," focusing on approximately 45 plants across the state that are located near residential areas.
This special pilot program was developed to proactively determine the potential for serious environmental and public safety incidents and take appropriate action to identify and address hazardous conditions that pose a risk to the community.
The initiative seeks to prevent incidents like the massive explosion at a manufacturing plant in Danversport just before Thanksgiving 2006, as well as the serious leak of sulfuric acid vapors from a manufacturing facility in South Hadley in October 2006.
"Both Danversport and South Hadley experienced catastrophic impacts from incidents that happened at small- to medium-sized industrial facilities," MassDEP Acting Commissioner Arleen O'Donnell said at the initiative's kickoff. "While we can't promise to find every potential threat, this joint inspection program will ensure that we have made the effort to work with companies to discover and abate imminent hazards that threaten public safety, the health of our communities, and the environment."
"The Department of Fire Services is pleased to be partnering with MassDEP on this important pilot project," Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan said. "The information it will generate is key to protecting our communities, our firefighters and the environment from the types of major incidents we have recently experienced."
A Cooperative Effort in Inspecting Plants
In the past, the storage and handling of chemicals and the handling and disposal of hazardous waste were inspected separately. Now, under this initiative, state inspectors and local fire investigators are reviewing the entire operation - both storage and waste - to get a complete view of the operations at each facility. Traditionally, the authority to inspect raw materials and many virgin chemicals did not rest with state officials. This pilot program utilizes state law, Statute 21E, in a very broad manner to review these critical areas of concern.
The inspection teams, consisting of compliance officers and engineers from MassDEP and Fire Services inspectors, are working with the local fire departments to examine storage and handling practices at each site, with an eye to preventing another Danversport or South Hadley from happening again. Imminent hazards found during these inspections will be dealt with swiftly to protect the public and workers at those sites.
The facilities now being targeted for inspection show the following characteristics:
- Potential for accident causing injury, death or destruction;
- Flammable liquids or gas, reactive and water-reactive chemicals, poisonous gases and liquids, explosives, or other highly hazardous materials present on-site; and
- Densely populated areas located nearby.
Inspections of the first round of facilities should be completed this fall. Results will be evaluated to determine future strategies that can be used by state and local officials to improve the safety of operations at all small- and medium-sized facilities.
For MassDEP, this pilot program is part of a first-in-the-nation initiative to inspect the hazardous waste storage and handling procedures of more small- and medium-sized manufacturing plants across the state. Based on past experience, MassDEP has found higher levels of regulatory noncompliance at small facilities (13 percent noncompliance rates) than at larger facilities (9 percent). There are approximately 15,000 Small Quantity and Very Small Quantity Generators of hazardous waste in the state. MassDEP typically inspects roughly 200 each year.
There are 485 Large Quantity Generators in Massachusetts, and MassDEP is required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to inspect 20 percent of them each year. Under this new arrangement, EPA has given MassDEP flexibility to reduce its inspections of Large Quantity Generators and increase its inspections of Small Quantity Generators, which seem to pose a greater risk.
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