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Chemical accidents involving ammonium nitrate are rare, but have the potential for significant property destruction, injury and death. Although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) all have regulations in place, they apparently are not adequate to prevent accidents or ensure emergency response is prepared.
In its recent report, the GAO acknowledges that one reason the total number of facilities storing large quantities of ammonium nitrate is unknown is that the “various reporting requirements and numerous reporting exemptions,” make it difficult for facilities to know what to report and to whom. For example, farmers could be exempt from reporting under both the EPA’s Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and the DHS’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) because EPCRA reporting requirements do not apply to substances used in routine agricultural operations and DHS does not currently require certain agricultural producers to report their chemical holdings to DHS.
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The report also makes several observations about other regulatory shortcomings that were brought to light:
- While OSHA has requirements for storing ammonium nitrate fertilizer in its Explosives and Blasting Agents regulations, the agency has done little to instruct the fertilizer industry about how to comply,
- OSHA’s ammonium nitrate regulations have not been significantly changed since 1971 and may be outdated,
- OSHA rarely issues citations for violations of its ammonium nitrate regulations at fertilizer facilities,
- OSHA does not include ammonium nitrate in the chemicals covered under the Process Safety Management (PSM) regulations and, according to the GAO, “OSHA officials told (the GAO) they did not know why ammonium nitrate was not included when the regulation was first issued.”
- EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) regulations do not cover explosives grade ammonium nitrate (which were removed as a result of a legal action),
- EPA’s RMP also does not cover fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate because, the GAO says, “EPA officials also told the (GAO) that fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate was not considered for its list for RMP because the agency had determined that it did not meet the criteria EPA established to implement the statute.” Specifically, the report notes ammonium nitrate was not included because it was not considered a toxic or flammable chemical, two of the criteria EPA used to develop the regulations. As a result, in 2006 when the EPA inspected the West, Texas fertilizer facility that exploded in 2013, inspectors focused on anhydrous ammonia, not on ammonium nitrate.
As a result, the GAO states that “While much can be achieved under current regulations, OSHA and EPA’s regulations contain gaps with respect to ammonium nitrate that may allow unsafe facilities to operate and poor planning to persist.”
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In light of these and other shortcomings in the federal regulation and oversight of ammonium nitrate facilities, the GAO made the following recommendations:
1) The Secretary of Labor, the EPA Administrator, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, as members of the Chemical Facility Safety and Security Working Group established by the Executive Order issued in August 2013, develop and implement methods of improving data sharing among federal agencies and with states.
2) The Secretary of Labor direct the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health to take the following three actions:
- Extend OSHA’s outreach to the fertilizer industry, for example, by developing and disseminating informational materials related to storage of ammonium nitrate.
- Take steps to identify high-risk facilities working with ammonium nitrate and develop options to target them for inspection.
- Consider updating regulations for the storage of ammonium nitrate taking into consideration, as appropriate, other related standards and current practices.
3) To strengthen federal oversight of facilities with ammonium nitrate, we recommend that the Secretary of Labor and the EPA Administrator direct OSHA and EPA, respectively, to consider revising related regulations to cover ammonium nitrate and jointly develop a plan to require high-risk facilities with ammonium nitrate to assess the risks and implement safeguards to prevent accidents involving this chemical.