Risk Management Plans 

Background

See Clean Air Act — General and Clean Air Act — Air Toxics.

Within Title III of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, Congress mandated a planning and response requirement. To address environmental and public health effects of releases of hazardous gases and volatile liquids, which can result in dangerous plumes, EPA reviewed potential deaths, injuries, and/or property damage from short-term exposures to hundreds of dangerous chemicals. The resulting list contained 77 toxic, reactive, flammable, volatile, or corrosive chemicals that present the greatest threat. Collectively, EPA calls these chemicals “regulated toxic substances.”

Facilities that have inventories of a regulated toxic substance in a single building or complex in excess of threshold quantities have to create a risk management plan. EPA’s risk management plan program aims to reduce or eliminate potential threats to public health and the environment by minimizing potential for and volume of unplanned releases. 40 CFR 68 contains the regulations for risk management plans.

Key Concepts

Regulated Toxic Substances (RTS List)

This is the list of 77 toxic, reactive, flammable, and/or volatile chemicals covered by this regulation. 40 CFR 68.130 contains this list.

General Duty Clause

Title III of the Clean Air Act Amendments has a “General Duty” clause that details some basic safety measures. This clause applies to any quantity of chemicals on the RTS list, wherever they exist on campus, including laboratories.

Process

A “process” is an engineering system that uses a large amount of a chemical to do work or as a starting product in some reaction. Ammonia in a chiller is part of a process. Ammonia in a lecture bottle in a laboratory is not part of a process. A process includes all similar systems in a single building. For instance, a chiller plant with several ammonia chiller systems counts as one process.

Threshold Quantities (TQs)

If an RTS is in a process above the threshold quantity (TQ), the campus has to create a risk management plan. TQs appear on the RTS list and vary by relative hazard of the chemical. TQs range from 1,000 to 20,000 pounds.

Risk Management Plan (RMP)

This is a detailed plan that includes accidental release response and prevention policies, accidental release history, worst-case release analysis, and other campus information. The specific requirements for RMPs are in 40 CFR 68 Subpart G.

Does this apply to my campus?

If there are operations on your campus that use chemicals on the RTS list, the General Duty clause applies to those operations.

If there are processes that use regulated toxic substances in excess of the TQs, the RMP requirements apply to those processes.

The following chemicals are the most likely to be present on a campus above the TQs:

What do I have to do?

First, determine where you have any of the chemicals on the RTS list on your campus. Then, for those campus operations with those chemicals, comply with the General Duty Clause with regard to those chemicals. The General Duty Clause applies to all chemicals on the RTS list, regardless of quantities and processes. The General Duty clause requires that you

• identify hazards that may result from accidental releases,
• design and maintain a safe facility, and
• minimize the consequences of releases when they occur.

In addition, if you have a quantity of any chemical greater than the TQ, you have to create a RMP. To accomplish this, you must do the following:

• determine the extent of the applicable requirements;
• assess your hazards, including performing offsite consequence analysis, worst-case release scenario, and alternative release scenario;
• maintain records for 5 years on any accidental releases you have;
• develop a maintenance and prevention program;
• develop an emergency response program; and
• register and submit your RMP to local, state, and federal agencies.