(104aa) Industry and Regulators Working Together in Preventing Accidents

The number and severity of
chemical accidents have been greatly reduced in Contra Costa County over the
last ten plus years, since the implementation of the California Accidental
Release Prevention and the County's Industrial Safety Ordinance programs.  This
includes the impact on a facility, the workers at that facility and the
community members surrounding the facility.    Contra Costa Health Services is
responsible for regulating business that poses a risk to nearby communities
from a release of a chemical, or a fire or explosion.  We are also tasked to
communicate and educate the public about these risks. The regulated facilities are
required to implement a number of prevention programs designed to improve
process safety.  Many of these requirements are very specific to the Industrial
Safety Ordinance (ISO), which is much more stringent than OSHA's Process Safety
Management and EPA's Risk Management Program and may be the most stringent
requirements in the world.  The presentation will show that working with the
regulated community the accidents that resulted in the surrounding community
seeking medical attention and the injuries or death of employees has been
reduced and by doing so has reduced the societal risks.

The presentation will summarize our prevention program
requirements and present a review of our incident history.  The presentation
will quantify the number and criticality of deficiencies to be corrected from
the audits has reduced over time.   The presentation of the paper will include
a panel of industry representatives to discuss how they correct the
deficiencies to implement a successful process safety program that includes
both management support and employee's buy-in.  These efforts included multi-million
dollar capital improvements that enhance safe operations of the facility that
directly reduces the probability of an accidental release to the nearby
community; lessons learned in implementing various prevention programs;
training and communications that led to improved safety culture where safety is
truly embraced and not seen as a paperwork exercise.  To that extent we have
seen process safety elements that have been embraced by the corporation and are
implemented at sister sites outside of the county jurisdiction.  We believe
that regulatory compliance in process safety directly contributed to making the
communities safer.