Investigators Stress Corporate Safety Culture

The federal chemical safety board is asking the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health to address chemical process safety and release prevention in its revamped research agenda.

The U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is proposing that NIOSH conduct research into several broad areas, including the effectiveness of chemical emergency preparedness programs and the safety implications of a large contractor workforce in the chemical industry.

The board also wants NIOSH to examine ways to evaluate a company???s safety culture, methods to reach small and medium businesses with preventive lessons, and how to improve the data available to describe and measure accidental chemical releases.

In remarks prepared for a March 6 town hall meeting in Piqua, Ohio, CSB Director of Recommendations Manuel Gomez said the safety board is providing input on the NIOSH research plan to emphasize ???the critical need for additional research on chemical process safety.???

In the past year, CSB has stressed the need for increased attention to safety culture. Most notably, the board issued an ???urgent safety recommendation??? to BP in August 2005 after an explosion and fire at the company???s Texas City, Texas, refinery killed 15 workers. CSB investigators directed BP to study the corporate safety culture at all five of its North American refineries.

Pointing to the 2003 nitric oxide explosion in nearby Miami Township, Ohio, that injured one worker and damaged several homes in a neighboring subdivision, Gomez said there are ???still many lessons to be learned in areas such as emergency preparedness and response.??? NIOSH, he said, is ???uniquely qualified to stimulate and fund valuable research on these sorts of accidents and their prevention.???