THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EPAS RULE ON RISK MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS FOR CHEMICAL ACCIDENTAL RELEASE PREVENTION

Regulations under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) include req uirements for preventing accidental chemical releases. Section 112(r) of the CAAA, the Accidental Release Provisions, requires the U.S. Envi ronmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and implement regulations for preventing accidental releases to the air of regulated substances and to minimize the consequences of releases that do occur. The regul ations require regulated facilities to have in place the structural el ements of a sound process safety program, and to practice, document, a nd communicate the elements of their program. The rule requires also t hat registered facilities calculate and make available worst case acci dental chemical release information. The rule does not set a level of risk that a facility must achieve after it takes the required complian ce steps, the level of risk a community must accept, the limit of cons equences the community might suffer from a worst case chemical release , nor the specific actions a community must take in its response plan. These are issues that local communities and local officials must deci de. Because the regulation involves the community in many unsettled ri sk issues the Wharton School initiated a project within the City Phila delphia to evaluate the proposition that productive dialogue on the im plementation of the Rule and resolution of unsettled risk issues can t ake place in advance of a crisis occasioned by a major accidental rele ase. This paper describes the steps taken by Wharton to bring together various stakeholders in the community to explore the implementation o f the rule and the reaction of those stakeholders to be involved in su ch a process. It outlines some principal choices communities will have to make in order to implement 112(r) and explains some of the dilemma s associated with these choices. It describes the stakeholder-based im plementation effort being undertaken in Philadelphia in the hope that others may benefit from what has been learned there.