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    Transportation of Ammonia Risk Analysis

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    mah_abdelaal
    This document analyzes the risk of transporting aqueous ammonia to a power plant site. It finds that the risk of an accident during transport causing 10 or more fatalities is estimated to be 1.59 in 1 million per year, and the risk of an accident causing 33 or more fatalities is estimated to be 0.25 in 1 million per year. Both of these risk levels are below the significance thresholds used for risk analysis. Therefore, the document concludes that the risk of exposure to ammonia during transport to the plant site is not significant.

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    Transportation of Ammonia Risk Analysis

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    mah_abdelaal
    46 views4 pages
    This document analyzes the risk of transporting aqueous ammonia to a power plant site. It finds that the risk of an accident during transport causing 10 or more fatalities is estimated to be 1.59 in 1 million per year, and the risk of an accident causing 33 or more fatalities is estimated to be 0.25 in 1 million per year. Both of these risk levels are below the significance thresholds used for risk analysis. Therefore, the document concludes that the risk of exposure to ammonia during transport to the plant site is not significant.

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    This document analyzes the risk of transporting aqueous ammonia to a power plant site. It finds that the risk of an accident during transport causing 10 or more fatalities is estimated to be 1.59 in 1 million per year, and the risk of an accident causing 33 or more fatalities is estimated to be 0.25 in 1 million per year. Both of these risk levels are below the significance thresholds used for risk analysis. Therefore, the document concludes that the risk of exposure to ammonia during transport to the plant site is not significant.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    46 views4 pages

    Transportation of Ammonia Risk Analysis

    Uploaded by

    mah_abdelaal
    This document analyzes the risk of transporting aqueous ammonia to a power plant site. It finds that the risk of an accident during transport causing 10 or more fatalities is estimated to be 1.59 in 1 million per year, and the risk of an accident causing 33 or more fatalities is estimated to be 0.25 in 1 million per year. Both of these risk levels are below the significance thresholds used for risk analysis. Therefore, the document concludes that the risk of exposure to ammonia during transport to the plant site is not significant.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 4

    APPENDIX 5.

    5C

    Transportation of Ammonia Risk Analysis


    TECHNICAL MEMORANDUM

    Transportation of Ammonia Risk Analysis


    PREPARED FOR: Robert Mason/CH2M HILL
    PREPARED BY: Sarah Madams & Jerry Salamy/CH2M HILL
    DATE: August 28, 2007

    Aqueous ammonia will be transported to the project site using U.S. Department of
    Transportation (DOT) approved tanker trucks. However, the transportation of ammonia,
    and any other hazardous material, poses a risk of exposure to the surrounding population
    due to an accidental release caused by a traffic accident involving the delivery vehicle.
    An aqueous ammonia leak occurring during delivery or transport of the material to the
    CECP storage tanks could result in hazardous ambient concentrations in the immediate
    vicinity of the release. The impact of this accidental release would depend upon the location
    of the release relative to the public. The possibility of accidental release during delivery
    depends upon the following factors which are reflected in the accident statistics:

    • Skill of the drivers


    • Type of vehicle used for transport
    • Traffic conditions or road type
    Because of the potential impact on the public, there are extensive regulatory programs in
    place in the United States and California to ensure safety during the transportation of
    hazardous materials, see the Federal Hazardous Materials Transportation Law (49 U.S.C. §
    5101 et seq.), the US Department of Transportation Regulations (49 C.F.R. Subpart H, § 172-
    700), and California DMV Regulations on Hazardous Cargo (CCR, Vehicle Code, § 34000).
    These regulations also address the driver’s abilities and experience. Because of these
    regulations, the CEC staff only focuses on the potential for an incidence after the delivery
    vehicle has left the main highway.1 Therefore, the following analysis focuses on the non-
    highway delivery routes due to the greater potential for accidents to occur on non-highway
    roads.
    Background on Hazardous Material Shipment
    The federal Office of Hazardous Materials Safety (OHMS) reports that about 280,000,000
    hazardous material shipments are made by truck per year (Hazardous Materials Shipments,
    OHMS Report, 1998 - http://hazmat.dot.gov/pubs/hms/hmship.pdf, page 9). The
    hazardous materials transportation incident statistics indicate a total of 11,750 highway
    incidents occurred in 1997, with 417 serious incidents for all modes of hazardous materials
    transportation (air, land, and sea). The OHMS defines a serious incident as causing one of
    the following: a fatality or major injury, closure of a major transportation artery or facility,

    1 See Hazardous Materials Management section of the Final Staff Assessment for the Contra Costa Power Plant Unit 8 (00-
    AFC-1), March 2, 2001.

    1
    TRANSPORTATION OF AMMONIA RISK ANALYSIS

    results in the evacuation of six or more persons, or results in the release of hazardous
    materials. This year (through August 28th), there have been only 3 reported aqueous
    ammonia releases nationwide where the cargo contained 35 percent ammonia, or less.
    (http://hazmat.dot.gov/pubs/inc/incdata.htm).
    Transportation Probability Analysis
    Technical and scientific literature on hazardous materials transportation was reviewed for
    accident rates in the United States and California in performing this transportation
    probability analysis for the delivery of aqueous ammonia to CECP. The following
    references were used to prepare this hazardous materials transportation probability
    analysis:
    Davies, P.A. and Lees, F.P. 1992. “The Assessment of Major Hazards: The Road Transport
    Environment for Conveyance of Hazardous Materials in Great Britain.” Journal of
    Hazardous Materials, 32: 41-79.
    Harwood, D.W., Viner, J.G., and E.R. Russell. 1993. “Procedure for Developing Truck
    Accident and Release Rates for Hazmat Routing.” Journal of Transportation Engineering.
    119(2): 189-199.
    Vilchez, J.A., Sevilla, S., Montiel, H., and J. Casal. 1995. “Historical Analysis of Accidents in
    Chemical plants and in the Transportation of Hazardous Materials.” J. Loss Prev. Process
    Ind. 8(2): 87-96.
    National Response Center (www.nrc.uscg.mil)
    Chemical Incident Reports Center, U.S. Chemical Safety Board (www.chemsafety.gov)
    National Transportation Safety Board (www.ntsb.gov)
    Data presented in the 1992 Davies and Lees study (which uses data from the 1990 Harwood
    study) identifies the frequency of hazardous materials release during transportation as
    between 0.06 and 0.19 releases per million miles traveled on well-designed roads and
    highways. The study presented data for the three dominant road types: urban freeway,
    rural freeway, and two-lane rural road. The reported frequencies of hazardous materials
    release during transportation per million miles traveled were 0.06 (urban freeway), 0.14
    (rural freeway), and 0.19 (two-lane rural road). The Davies and Lee study also estimated the
    probability of an incident randomly occurring in an area where a large number of people
    would be exposed. This analysis estimated that 8.9 percent of such incidents would cause
    more than 10 fatalities and 1.4 percent would cause more than 33 deaths. These statistics do
    not include any mitigating effects from meteorological conditions (such as wind) that would
    help disperse the ammonia, thus reducing the potential impacts.
    The Applicant estimates the annual number of ammonia deliveries to be a maximum of 60
    per year (5 deliveries per month X 12 months). Each ammonia delivery truck will travel
    approximately 1.56 miles from the Interstate 5 off-ramp to the plant site. Therefore, the
    estimated annual distance the loaded ammonia delivery trucks will travel on this section of
    roadway is 93.6 miles (1.56 miles x 60 deliveries).

    2
    TRANSPORTATION OF AMMONIA RISK ANALYSIS

    To be conservative in this analysis, the Applicant selected the two-lane rural road value,
    which has a higher risk rate than an urban truck route. Using the data presented in Davies
    and Lees for the reported frequency of a hazardous material transportation-related release
    of 0.19 releases per million miles of rural road traveled and the estimate that 8.9 percent of
    the incidents would cause more than 10 fatalities, the risk of an accident causing more than
    10 fatalities is 0.017 per one million tanker miles traveled (0.19 releases per million miles x
    0.089 accident rate). Since the distance traveled is 93.6 miles per year, the risk of an incident
    occurring during the year that would result in 10 or more fatalities is 0.017/million miles x
    93.6 miles, or 1.59 in one million.
    The risk of an accident occurring that would result in more than 33 deaths is even smaller.
    Using the Davies and Lee data, the probability is 0.19 releases per million miles of rural road
    traveled and the estimate that 1.4 percent of the incidents would cause more than
    33 fatalities; the risk of an accident causing more than 33 fatalities is 0.0027 per one million
    tanker miles traveled (0.19 releases per million miles x 0.014 accident rate). Since the
    distance traveled is 93.6 miles per year, the risk of an accident occurring in any year that
    would result in 33 or more fatalities is 0.0027/million miles x 93.6 miles, or 0.25 in one
    million.
    The CEC uses a significance threshold of 1 in 100,000 (or 10 in 1,000,000) for a risk of 10
    fatalities and a threshold of 1 in 1,000,000 for a risk of 100 fatalities2. Both of the project’s risk
    estimates (1.59 and 0.25 in one million) are at least 6 times below these thresholds.
    Therefore, the risk of exposure to aqueous ammonia during transport to the plant site is not
    significant.

    2 See Hazardous Materials Management section of the Final Staff Assessment for the Contra Costa Power Plant Unit 8 (00-
    AFC-1), March 2, 2001.

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