Strathcona County's Industrial Engagement Program: Leading the Way Using the MIACC Model

Strathcona County is in the heart of Alberta’s petrochemical district with oil refineries, chemical plants, oil and gas pipelines, and dangerous goods trains bringing unique challenges for public safety. Safe and sustainable industry is vital for the community to maintain the lifestyle and stay as a ‘World leader in petrochemical cluster’. This important strategic goal is included in the Municipality’s guiding document Strathcona County Vision 2030 – Powering our New Tomorrow.

This means there is and there will be a continuous presence of hazardous materials for storage, use, handling, transportation and similar operations. These materials and their operational situations are prone to industrial accidents and there should be adequate protections and effective risk reduction programs in place to address them.

The industrial sector has been expanding for the last 50 to 60 years and with every growth the risk grows as well. Strathcona County has taken the initiative of addressing industrial risk by utilising an engineering best practice called MIACC (Major Industrial Accident Council of Canada) guidelines - a recommended practice published by Canadian Society of Chemical Engineering – Process Safety Management Division. This guideline provides a ‘risk acceptability criteria’ and land use solution to control risk on existing and new industrial sites. It also gives recommendations on how to develop the nearby lands to avoid encroachments and unwanted exposure of risk to the public. The municipal land use bylaw restricts the residential development up to 3 km from the land zoned ‘heavy industrial’ and at a regular interval Strathcona County measures its cumulative risks exposed to the adjacent residential lands as part of risk control activities.

Strathcona County Emergency Services (SCES) is part of the development review team and has now established a MIACC based industrial follow up program called Industrial Engagement Program, the first in Canada which focuses on risk control inspections and PSM education based on PSM Standard CSA Z767-17.

Strathcona County earned credibility for its fixed approach on land buffering in the MIACC guidelines. With Industrial Engagement Program going forward, Strathcona County will continue its role as a leader in Public Safety in Canada which is in line with the vision of Strathcona County Emergency Services “We will lead our community to be the safest in Canada”.