Development of Emergency Planning and Response Model Based on OSHA Process Safety Management Requirement

When incidents happen and the consequences are not mitigated effectively,
one of the indicated failures consists of ineffective emergency response planning
(EPR). EPR is an important aspect of the Process Safety Management (PSM)
Standards and the guidelines are stated in CFR 1910.119 (n) which explains the
minimum elements of emergency response and procedures in handling emergency or
small releases. Despite its implementation in 1992, CSB finds ineffective EPR system
in certain accidents such as the Missouri DPS Enterprise Chlorine Gas Release
accident in 2002. DPS EPR failed in planning on location of emergency equipment
and accessibility. Many other accidents has occurred throughout the decade and even
though organizations have their own EPR system, there are issues in meeting
minimum PSM requirements. There also exists the problem of self-regulatory policies
practiced by organizations which might not meet these requirements as well. To help
organizations meet these minimum requirements, the purpose of this paper is to
present a structured and easy technique to plan and implement EPR as per PSM
requirements. A model has been developed based on this technique and its application
has been tested as a case study in a refinery in Malaysia and discussed in this report.
The results reflected the feasibility of this model as it helped users track and manage
documents better. This technique has the potential to help users manage EPR better to
reduce adverse impacts to people, environment and assets