Introduction Process Safety Management

On October 23, 1989, a contractor who was undertaking maintenance work on the polyethylene reactor at the Phillips Petroleum Company plant in Pasadena, Texas, failed to properly secure a valve on the reactor, resulting in catastrophic consequences - 85,000 pounds of highly flammable ethylene-isobutane gas were released into the atmosphere. With no warning or detectors to give notice of the imminent danger, the gas cloud ignited with the power of two-and-a-half tons of dynamite, killing 23 workers and seriously injuring at least 130 people.

This event, and many others, provided the impetus for authorities to develop legislation and regulations to eliminate or minimize the potential for such events. On July 17, 1990, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed a plan for the management of hazards associated with processes using acutely hazardous materials, which resulted in the establishment of the OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.119 - Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals. OSHA has been working in tandem with approved states to enforce the requirements of the process safety standard contained in 29 CFR 1910.119 ever since. This course provides an overview of the approved state plan of California for the process safety management of acutely hazardous materials, as provided in the California Code of Regulations (CCR) Title 8 Section 5189.

To learn more about Process Safety Management visit our Cal/OSHA Process Safety Management Online Training web page.