The Houston site employs about 168 employees and conducts operations around the clock. Our employees and the surrounding community are major stakeholders in our business strategies. We operate with their Safety first in mind. Our approach to Responsible Care® looks for engineering controls to minimize exposure risks to our employees and community, newer technologies, training, and best industry practices to ensure our processes are inherently safe to operate within the community.
What is RMP?
RMP (Risk Management Plan) is a USEPA requirement developed to promote chemical safety. The purpose of RMP is to enhance risk planning in local communities. It affects about 66,000 facilities in the US. The key elements of RMP are:
Hazard assessment and accident scenarios
Accident prevention programs
Emergency response plans
The Houston site is a Risk Managed Site that uses chemicals and processes that require safe handling. Our products are used in everyday household uses such as industrial cleaning agents as well as some oil field and agricultural applications and even some personal care products.
Accident prevention is a great concept. However the key to a safer operation is hazard recognition and control. The Houston site utilizes several tools and processes to identify and control potentially hazardous chemicals. Several Safety auditing controls are in place. We use Process Safety Management and the Management of change processes to evaluate and correct identified issues resulting from our operations and the chemicals used. Additionally, we have employed a Behavioral Based Safety Process that is employee driven. This process engages employees in hazard recognition keying on the human element. The site employees have embraced this process and it has become an integral piece of our Safety Management Systems.
Hazard assessments are at the very core of accident prevention as is emergency response planning because they provide knowledge of the types of accidents that could occur and the potential effects. EPA requires this analysis to address worst-case and alternative release scenarios. A worst-case scenario is a hypothetical incident such as the instantaneous rupture of a large storage tank containing a hazardous substance. An alternative release scenario represents an incident that is more likely to occur than a worst-case scenario.
Development of worst-case and alternative case scenarios does not mean such accidents would ever occur. They are intended to guide emergency responders to plan how they would react to possible chemical accidents to minimize their effect. This planning also helps facilities verify that the necessary procedures are in place to reduce the probability of such accidents.
How is the Safety performance at the site?
The Houston site has operated more than four years and over 1,400,000 hours since our last LTI. Our culture is to report all incidents and our management and employees' partnership to the commitment of operating responsibly is the reason the Houston site continues to improve. It is this spirit of continuous improvement that drives our performance.
To that end, our business principles and beliefs are that our business remains healthy ONLY if we keep our employees and the community safe!
What efforts has the site taken to educate and protect the community?
Our site is actively involved in business partnerships that educate and involve our neighbors, both business as well as residential. We work closely with area schools to present safety awareness programs. The site is currently pursuing a reverse 911 system jointly with a neighboring business that would automatically alert our neighbors in the event of a site emergency.
Ironically, even prior to the events of September 11, 2001 our site, as a member of the American Chemistry Council, was mandated to assess and install security measures at the site that would enhance our ability to keep the premises secure from unauthorized access. Those efforts are in place and have been verified by a reputable 3rd party and forwarded to the ACC for filing.
Our site works closely with outside 1st responders so that if there ever were a need, our efforts to minimize impact would be well coordinated.
