SARA AND THE FIRE DEPARTMENT
Congressional concern about firefighters’ safety was reflected by passage of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA), specifically Title III. This section of the legislation is concerned with requirements for reporting hazardous chemicals by the facilities that use, make, or store them.
Section 302, Emergency Planning Notification stipulates that all companies in the Census Bureau’s Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes 20 to 39, which cover all manufacturers, were to file reports by May 17, 1987, if they had on their premises “planning threshold quantities” (defined in SARA) of any of the 406 (366 at last count) chemicals the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has labeled “extremely hazardous.” A list of these chemicals was published in the November 17, 1986, edition of the Federal Register. These reports went to the state emergency planning commissions, which were charged with alerting the local emergency planning committees w’hose districts included SARA-covered facilities. The reports did not have to identify the chemicals, list the number of materials stored, or reveal the quantities.
Each covered facility was to name a “facility coordinator” to develop an emergency plan covering any accidental release of the extremely hazardous chemical or any other emergency at the facility that might require evacuation of the immediate or downwind area, or both. The coordinator then was to meet with the local emergency planning committee so that that facility’s plan could be incorporated into the community emergency plan—which was to include every’ location that could release a toxic material in the jurisdiction—by October 17, 1988.
Section 304. Emergency Release Notification. Hi is section says that the facility must file a report with the community’s emergency coordinator, the state emergency planning commission, and the National Response Center set up by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 whenever any EPA-defined extremely hazardous substance is released in reportable quantities —as defined by SARA—and extends beyond the boundary’ of the facility.
Section 311Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) Reports. All companies in SIC Codes 20 to 39 were to make a one-time-only report by October 17, 1987, to the state and local emergency’ planning groups and the local fire department if any hazardous chemicals in certain quantities had been present on their sites during the preceding 12 months. Companies could submit lists of the covered chemicals and their hazards or MSDSs. SARA now’ covers all businesses that have on their premises a reportable threshold quantity of any covered chemical (10,000 pounds for any chemical compound or mixture for which the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Hazard Communication Standard requires the chemical manufacturer to send the user or storer an MSDS and 500 pounds for extremely hazardous chemicals).
(The EPA has consolidated the original Hazard Communication Standard list of 23 hazards into the following five threats: acute health hazard, chronic health hazard, fire hazard, reactive hazard, and suddenrelease-of-pressure hazard.)
Section 3/2, Inventory» Forms. Tier 1 reporting: Each year by March 1, all facilities having hazardous chemicals present must report the aggregate amounts by each of the five EPA-defined hazard classes and the general location of the chemicals in the facilities to fire department, local emergency planning committees, and state emergency planning commissions. Tier 11 reporting: Any of the agencies to which the report is sent may request the following information for any particular chemical — the chemical’s name, its CAS number, the amount present, the type of containers, and its specific location.
Section 313, Toxic Release Reporting. Accidental releases of reportable quantities that spread beyond the bounds of facilities in SIC Codes 20 through 39 that have 10 or more fulltime employees and manufactured, processed, or otherwise used a toxic chemical in excess of its planning threshold quantity in the year preceding the release have to be reported to the EPA and a state official designated by the governor.
Congress created these reporting requirements in SARA to make the fire service a repository for information on hazardous chemicals within their jurisdiction. The legislators assumed that if a fire department has this information it will be used to educate, train, and equip its first responders to handle almost any chemical emergency.
