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Opening
remarks
It is so good to see this large
group assembled to this Hazardous Materials conference! My days in this field go back to the
time when you were lucky to get five people in a room to talk about the
problems and solutions you are going to talk about here - and then they were all from the same organization. Hardly any coordination.
It's exciting to me to see how
interest in the field has grown, and how people from all parts of the hazardous
materials community are talking to each other these days. The quantity and quality of talent at
this meeting is a far cry from the handful of that started out to bring about a
reduction in the risks with which you deal.
There is a continuing stream of
newcomers as well as old timers involved in this field of hazards materials and
hazardous materials response activities. Each person brings new or continuing energy to the problems and
solutions that need to be addressed in this field. Collectively, their actions shape the course of these
activities for the future.
In setting a course for the future, often it is helpful to pause just a moment and look back at
where we have been, to be sure we stay on the most desirable course. I would like to do just that during the
next few minutes. Then I'd like to
offer my view of where we might have to steer this field, in group activities
such as this conference, and individually in our day-to-day work in the 1990s.
The
Decade of the 1950s
This decade could probably be
characterized as the "Scaling Up" decade for our discussion today.
Come back with me to the 1950's for
a moment. That was the decade
after a widespread war had devastated a large portion of the world. The focus was on rebuilding for a
better future. The production
miracles in our country during the war had stirred up new visions of what could
be done, on a scale that was
unthinkable before the war.
Three developments were to have a
profound effect on the hazmat field, and the need for you to be here
today. The first was the idea of "economies
of scale" or cutting costs by working
with large quantities. It was
implemented in production facilities, and in transportation in many ways. Chemicals, petroleum products and other
commodities move from small plants to much larger plants of a scale that had
been undreamed of before "the war." The idea of "Bigger is
better" got its real start in industry in the 1950s. Plans were laid for major changes, and
development work started in earnest to implement the idea everywhere you
looked. "Scale up" ideas
dominated the mind set of industry, government and academia during that
decade. They are still widely
prevalent, and affect why you are here.
A second development was the
introduction of a vast array of new products, as industry began to respond to new opportunities, and to utilize the
large crop of "GI Bill" veterans and their imaginative ideas. Changes introduced during this period
in the type, nature, quantity and form of materials were wide ranging. If you're ever interested in tracking
the changes, trace the changes in
the dangerous goods commodity lists and authorized containers on the list from
the 1950s thru the 1980s. There
was also a lot of regulatory work going on at that time, setting up events of
the next decade.
A third development, more subtle
than the other two also emerged. It was during this decade that the added value concept took hold, really stimulating the search for new
products which would bring higher prices because of their greater value to
users. A pound of chlorine shipped
as chlorine gas produced substantially lower revenues than that same pound of
chlorine in say 20 pounds of DDT, a chlorine containing pesticide. Creating a market for propane gas which
produced greater revenues that selling the equivalent quantity of crude oil as
say heating oil, introduced new risks. Whole new families of chemicals and petroleum products evolved. And they had to be moved.
And that still affects you.
The
Decade of the 1960s
The decade of the 60s can
probably be characterized as the Decade of Growth -- in risks.
During this decade the plans and
activities of the 50's started to bear fruit -- in more than one way.
First, the changes of the
50s resulted in larger and larger
shipments of hazardous materials. And these larger shipments strained the
transport system and infrastructure in ways that had not been anticipated. I personally have seen tank
cars grow during the 60s from 11,000 gallon nominal size in the early 50's to
48,000 gallon sizes and even larger for rail movements. In a fleet that I managed highway
trailer sizes grew from 2600 gallons to 7000 gallons and greater. Commodities like chlorine and solvents
started moving in barges and ocean tankers, where they had not moved previously
by water.
One of the consequences of these
larger shipment sizes was the increased losses when accidents occurred.
Another development was the new
Department of Transportation created in
1966. The legislation included the
National Transportation Safety Board, an
independent agency charged with investigating transportation accidents. Among the first major accidents it
investigated were hazardous materials accidents, involving these
"jumbo" transporters.
A second development during the
60s would have a profound effect in the 70s.and on those attending this
meeting. That was the beginning of
the development of predictive safety analysis tools in the
aerospace industry. I like to
think of these developments as providing new power tools for safety
analysis. Prior to the
development of these tools safety was retrospective. That means we had to wait for accidents before we analyzed
what went wrong and fixed it. With
these new power tools, expectations for controlling safety risks began to
change.
The
Decade of the 1970s
The decade of the 70s can
probably be characterized as the Turnaround Decade.
From the foregoing, you can
probably guess what happened next. The NTSB started to report on these changes, and took the public
position that such accidents were unacceptable. At the NTSB, a risk analysis had showed that firefighters
responding to hazmat accidents bore risks 10,000 times greater than any other
of the parties at risk, so the NTSB concentrated heavily on their activities at
these accidents to see what might be done to reduce those risks. It also brought the parties bearing
these risks into the public processes by which the needs of all parties
affected by the accidents were brought to light.
This had four major effects. It opened a dialogue between the parties who introduced
the risks and the firefighters and others who personally bore the risks in
accidents. Such dialogues can
result in controversy, or in changes in positions of both parties which in this
case is what happened. Shippers
started to pay attention to the emergency response needs of the responders, and
vice versa.
The second major effect was that
these large consequence accidents became less and less acceptable to the public, and the politicians who represent the
public. New legislation was
passed, putting the regulation of hazmat into a risk-based framework, and
providing new safety tools for the regulatory agencies, among other
changes. The pressures resulting
from the accidents and the political unacceptability of the consequences of the
accidents, and the risks to emergency responders, resulted in a $250,000,000
retrofit program for certain hazardous materials tank cars -- the second
largest retrofit program ever undertaken in the transportation field. The risks dropped dramatically. The retrofit resulted in over a 95%
reduction in the risks associated with that type of accident.
A third effect was the
application of the new safety analysis power tools to some of these accidents,
which resulted in the
evolution of new concepts about the responder risks, and new strategies and tactics designed
to achieve safer outcomes for the emergency responders at risk. More new power tools were developed
during the decade, including modeling capabilities to predict the dispersal of
hazmat releases, and better investigation technologies that further enhanced
the capabilities of analysts to predict risks and control them more
effectively, setting the stage for the 80s and 90s.
A fourth change occurred within
the emergency response community itself. Emergency responders took a hard look at what they were doing. Many members of the emergency response community
recognized the need to change their own thinking when it came to hazardous materials emergencies. The "attack and extinguish"
philosophy governing most responses gave way to a different approach for
hazardous materials emergencies.
The
Decade of the 1980s
The 1980s can probably best be
characterized as the Decade of Action and Respect for Emergency
Responders.
Driven by Bhopal and other
mishaps, in the 80s, legislative bodies came to respect the needs of responders
in a big way, reflecting a "safe first time" philosophy that required
risks to be considered before certain actions could be undertaken by
industry. I won't go into the
details because most of you are familiar with them -- Superfund II, the New
Jersey Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act, and others mean a lot to you, I am
sure.
It was a decade when the
politicians listened to emergency responders,
and you got a lot of what you asked for.
Where in the past, emergency
responders were in a reactive mode, their mode in the 80s began to shift to an
active mode. The main effect for
the purposes of this presentation is that the emergency response community got
a lot of what it asked for because their needs were recognized as legitimate,
and the dialogues and incidents had helped soften the opposition.
With these changes, I believe the
emergency response field has changed in a dramatic way. The emergency response community's
record from now on has become its record, not somebody else's, during this decade.
To sum up, where are we now?
First, you have the attention and
respect of the communities you serve, and they are being relatively supportive
of you resource needs. You could
always use more, but look at what you have today vs. what you had 20 years ago.
At the National level, you have
the attention of the legislators, as evidenced by the legislative support you
have received in recent years. You
didn't get everything you asked for, but compare what you have today with what
you had 20 years ago.
Technically, there are new safety
analysis power tools available to help you predict with reasonable accuracy the
problems you face in emergencies. They are not perfect, but consider what you have today with what you had
20 years ago.
But these are not the biggest
changes for you, as I see it. The
biggest change is that now the hazmat emergency response record has become the
emergency response community's record. If it is turns out good, you can claim credit for bringing it
about. If it turns out badly, you
will held accountable for that result.
You are now making your
record.
What does that mean for the
decade ahead - the 1990s?
The
Decade of the 1990s
I would characterize the 90s as your Decade of More and
Better. The irony is that the more
you do and the better you do it, the less the public will think they need you.
This means that you will have to watch the record you are
making. You will need to stay alert to what might be called the "more and
better" issues. The good news
is that you have never been in a better position to do that. You will have to be alert to the
"more and better" issues so you can address them in a timely and
effective manner, and so you don't jeopardize the support you now have. The bad news is that the public forgets
quickly.
More and Better what? I offer the following "more and better"
examples.
1. More competition for resources
One of the issues you will have
to watch for is more changes in the hazmat concerns in your communities and
among your supporters, particularly as they affect priorities for allocation of
resources you need for hazmat. My
observations all suggest that the competition for resources will continue to
intensify in both government and private organizations. What does this mean for
hazmat emergency responders?
You compete for resources for
your hazmat programs now. There
are limits to the resources you can legitimately claim for hazmat. Right now, your hazmat claims are
getting reasonable attention. Your
success in reducing accidental losses during hazmat emergencies can begin to
work against you as the public perceives that the risk has subsided, and it
gives more weight to environmental or new social concerns. On the other hand, it is not hard to
visualize the fiasco that will follow a major environmental insult by runoff
from a hazmat fire operation. How can you keep getting the resources you need,
or make do with declining resources?
Better measures of success.
Another need for the 90s this
suggests is the need for better measures of your response efforts, to demonstrate
first to yourselves and then to others how successful your intervention in an
emergency has been.
In our research, I continue to
observe examples where the persons making the response decisions are
handicapped by an inability to make reasonably informed judgments of losses,
whether they are considering a "do nothing" option or a specific
action choice. In both cases, this creates problems, because it means any
option you chose lacks an objective against which you can measure the success
of your decision. You will need to
focus on outcomes, in the systems sense.
Better loss data
For the 90s the need to acquire and document better loss data will be
important. One of the most
frustrating experiences you can imagine in allocating resources is not knowing
the benefits that could be gained by spending a particular amount of money to
perform a task. What is the
expected loss if I do not fund the operation, and what is the new expected loss
if I do fund it. Those numbers are
not available because inadequate effort is put into capturing the total losses,
particularly losses by category of risk bearer, when incidents do occur. What you need is a good guideline for
the production of better loss data to support trade-off analyses.
2. More changes in strategies and tactics
The strategies and tactics for
your existing operations were pretty well laid out and described in the
70s. But as you make your record
in the 90s, I predict more changes in strategies and tactics will be needed for some kinds of operations. For example, how long do you think citizens will continue to
accept the closing of a facility or transportation artery like a busy urban
beltway or vital bridge link when they see very little potential for injury or
damage for the short time they might be exposed, or when they start to learn
that you had several other options in most cases? What does this mean to you?
Better System Definition
Our ongoing work persuades me
that a major need for better definition of systems and their operations as they
relate to hazmat emergencies is needed before more strategic and tactical
options can be properly identified. To paraphrase a folk saying, "Everybody talks about the system but
nobody does anything about defining it" in documented form for
analyses. We can demonstrate that
unless you know a system, you can not flow chart it. And without a flow chart, for everyone to use, we have found
you can't establish control strategies, tactics and options. Try flow charting actions during an
emergency response sometime, and see for yourself what is possible. During the 90s, you will be hearing
more and more about this technical change.
Better Lessons Learned Processes
A need for better "lessons
learned" processes is clearly indicated, so you can identify candidate improvements
in strategies and tactics. A
properly conceived and used "lessons learned" system will enable you
to point to more and better options, and to assess them properly. This a technical change for which
technology is available, but lacks
managerial interest to implement..
3. More attention to environmental
concerns
Another area where I think more
changes will need to be developed is in response to environmental concerns, and
to environmentally threatening situations. I often wonder why we make such artificial distinctions
between hazmat and environmental emergencies, in view of the commonality of the
sources of the effects.
Better environmental action
Hazmat pose a threat to the environment by definition. How do your efforts contribute to the
protection of the environment? Is
there more of a role for persons with emergency response capabilities to play
in protecting the environment? The
Exxon Valdes mishap may be instructive, despite its scope. Here the approach may have to be made
more preventive. This might be
accomplished by using some of
Haddon's first few energy control strategies, rather than present reactive
responses of barriers or containment.
Better coordination of roles
A need for the 90s this suggests
is the need rethink the roles required to satisfy this growing concern for
protection of the environment, and specifically your role in both short term
and long term efforts. For
example, might you knowledge of hazmats in emergencies contribute to the
development of new standards for the aggregation of environmentally hazardous
materials in certain locations, or in clean-up assistance helping the EPA. This would require new levels of
coordination that may seem unrealistic at first glance, but should you make an
effort in this direction? When you
look at the tasks involved, it occurs to me that the police and firefighting
communities could have a lot to offer, with proper consultations and
coordination. Jurisdictional
boundaries will have to be reconsidered - agency, state and Federal.
Not that you aren't busy now, but ......who knows?
What
will 1999 look like?
My best guess:
Smaller and smaller losses
due to a combination of better hazmat
responses and the constructive influence of emergency response personnel and
their views on the system.
Continuing performance
improvement with less resources by emergency response organizations,
through better dialogues and coordination of resources and role definition, use
of safety's new power tools, and resource allocation pressures.
In summary,
We've come a long way.
There's still lots of room for new ideas and better
actions.
Your future is brighter than it has ever been if you stay
alert and responsive to the changes ahead!
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- - - - - -Last updated on 12/27/04