European Seveso Directive

The area is a 2000 hectares industrial area, with 200 firms and more than 5000 workers. A large petrochemical park, with a dozen of independent operators, represents the core activity in the cluster. Many small and medium sized facihties are located in the area, including power stations, pharmaceutical and chemical plants, mechanical workshops, and shipyards. The area is served by a large industrial and commercial ports, with related facihties. In a few establishments the major accident hazard legislation (Seveso Legislation) is enforced and thns the risk analysis is much deeper than nsual. Furthermore, according the Itahan implementation of the European Seveso Directive, the data for Mond index calculation are provided by the duty holders. 

European Council Directive on "Major Accidents of Certain Industrial Activities," ("Seveso Directive"), 82/501/EEC, June 4,1982, as amended 87/216/EEC, March 19,1987, European Union, Brussels, Belgium. 

OSHA relied on several established lists-including the New Jersey Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act (TCPA), the Delaware Extremely Hazardous Substances Risk Management Act, the European Communities Seveso Directive (82/501/EEC), and NFPA Hazardous Chemicals Data (NFPA 49)-to develop its list of highly hazardous chemicals. OSHA chose to list the chemicals classified as reactive category 3 or 4 in NFPA 49 (1975 edition). 

The concept of a safety case comes from the requirements of the European Union/European Community (EU/EC) Seveso Directive (82/501/EC) and, in particular, regulations that the United Kingdom and other member states used to implement that directive. United Kingdom regulations (Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards [CIMAH], 1984 replaced by Control of Major Accident Hazards Involving Dangerous Substances [COMAH] in 1999) require that major hazardous facilities produce a safety report or safety case.64 The requirement for a safety case is initiated by a list of chemicals and a class of flammables. Like the hazard analysis approach (Section 8.1.2), experts identify the reactive hazards of the process if analysis shows that the proposed process is safe, it may be excluded from additional regulatory requirements. 

Since the European Seveso II Directive demands that industry discover what it may inadvertently produce and then emit when accidents happen, studies are starting on pyrolysis fumes, in an attempt to link these to functional groups [9]. The same group is also studying off-gases from other runaway reactions. 

Several countries have regulations detailing requirements for process safety. Countries in Europe have adopted regulations in response to the European Union s Seveso Directives. The Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) regulation in the United Kingdom is one example. Brazil and Hong Kong have also... 

In 1982, the European Union s Council Directive 82/501/EEC on the major-accident hazards of certain industrial activities, also known as the Seveso Directive, was adopted. The Directive was mostly designed to promote information flow and created the requirement that each Member State (i.e., each country belonging to the European Union) appoint a Competent Authority to oversee safety issues. The Seveso Directive was amended twice, following major accidents at the Union Carbide chemical factory in Bhopal, India in 1984 (a leak of methyl isocyanate caused thousands of deaths), and at the Sandoz chemical warehouse in Basel, Switzerland in 1986 (fire-fighting water contaminated with mercury, organophosphate pesticides and other chemicals caused massive pollution of the Rhine River and the death of hundreds of thousands of fish). Both amendments, broadened the scope of the Directive, in particular to include the storage of dangerous substances. 

The Seveso Directive covered all European Union Member States, and held them responsible for ensuring that the relevant national institutions do what is required for adequate risk management. The entire Directive was also driven by a concern for prevention, including those parts that relate to post-accident activities. For example, terms such as industrial activity, manufacturer, major accident, and dangerous substances were defined, the types of production, operations, and storage activities that are subject to regulation were described, and the dangers that are anticipated were noted. 

Official Journal of the European Communities Council Directive of 24 June 1982 (the Seveso Directive) on the Major-Accident Hazards of Certain Industrial Activities, Official Journal of the European Communities, Berlin. 1989. 

The Seveso Directive is administered by the European Union through the Major Accident Hazards Bureau services (MAHB) located within the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy. The Bureau also oversees the European Community s Documentation Centre Industrial Risk (CDCIR) and manages the Major Accident Reporting System (MARS) with the aim to create a repository of information and facilitate the exchange between the members of the European Community. MARS follows the requirements of the Seveso II directive and collects information about major chemical incidents as well as the response and results. Member States are required to report the events by using standardized forms. 

The necessary emergency measures to be taken following accidental spillage or poisoning have to be assessed, and national fire control legislation will also apply. Exceptional risks to the community surrounding a chemical plant may have to be evaluated under major accidents hazards legislation, such as the European Community (EC) Seveso Directive [4]. 

Most credible initiating events and their fi equencies can be gathered either from the company s incidents library or from agencies such as CSB (Chemical Safety Board in US), CIMAH (Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards in US), COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards in UK), European Seveso H Directive and HSE (Health and Safety Executive in UK). 

Runaway reactions were an underlying cause of other industrial accidents such as that which occurred in Seveso, Italy in 1976. The nearby chemical plant was producing 2,4,5-trichlorophenol, an intermediate for manufacturing of a medical disinfectant hexachlorophene. The runaway reaction of 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene with sodium hydroxide went out of control and resulted by an explosion and release into atmosphere of an unintended byproduct of this reaction, highly toxic 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). The nearby communities were thus exposed to TCDD. This accident triggered industrial environmental safety regulations passed by the European Community in 1982 and termed Seveso Directive. 

Since early 1999, the Seveso Directive 11 of the European Commission (EC) has become mandatory for industry and public authorities of the EC member states. Requirements include ... 

One example is the Seveso Directive, created in 1988 for European Union (EU) countries. The Seveso Directive requires that information be provided to populations affected by a major accident on the site. This information should include ... 

The Dutch PGS directives are based on the SEVESO Directives. The Seveso II Directive 96/82/EC was extended by Directive aoos/ros/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2003 amending Council Directive 96/82/EC. The latter was established to cover risks arising from storage and processing activities in mining, from pyrotechnic and explosive substances, and from the storage of ammonium nitrate and ammonium nitrate-based fertilisers. 

The Seveso accident at the ICMESA plant north of Milan in Italy on Jnly 10, 1976 - which may have killed no one, although many people were subseqnently affected by disfiguring chloracne - remains a very important event (see, e.g., [2]). As a result of this accident, 1800 hectares of land became contaminated with the carcinogen 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (or dioxin for short). This accident led ultimately to the European Union s three Seveso Directives which have been... 

Parallel to these Dutch developments policy was developed with respect to major hazards both within the European Commission and several member states. This resulted in, amongst others, the EU Seveso directive, the German Stbrfall-Verordnung, the UK CIMAH regulations and the ILO 174 Major Hazard convention. ... 

European Major Accidental Reporting System (EMARS) is selected to recover the historical data of accidents for 30 years from 1983 to 2013. The EMARS was established by the EU s Seveso Directive 82/501/EEC in 1982. The purpose of this reporting system is to facilitate the exchange of lessons learned from accidents and near misses involving dangerous substances in order to improve chemical accident prevention and mitigation of potential consequences (EMARS). At the moment, only accidents are considered in this analysis with a possibility to add near misses in future. 

Risk analysis is applied as a mandatory tool in many countries in the prevention of major accidents, see Section 2.2. Legislation such as the Seveso Directives in Europe and the Clean Air Act amendment in the USA has supported this development (European Council, 1996 EPA, 1990). 

In the United Kingdom this is covered by the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH), set up by the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) to implement the Seveso II directive of the EC (European Union) see www.hse.gov.uk. The COMAH regulations supersede the previous CIMAH (1984) regulations, set up under Seveso I. 

Most countries also have regulations analogous to the U.S. regulations. For example, the European Union issued the "Seveso II Directive in 1996 (replacing the original 1982 directive) which requires all member states to implement regulations for the control of major accident hazards. Also, in addition to the U.S. government requirements,... 

Seveso II directive [96/082/EEC], 1996. Council Directive of December 9, 1996 on the control of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances, The council of the European union. 

The EPA RMP regulation and the European Community s Seveso II directive both exempt covered processes from some regulatory provisions, if the facility documents the absence of catastrophic damage from process accidents under reasonable worst case conditions. The State of New Jersey is also considering similar action in its proposed revisions of the Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act (TCPA) regulations. 

Papadakis, G.A. and Amendola, A. (eds) (1997) Guidance on the Preparation of the Safety Report to Meet the Requirements of Council Directive 96/82/EC (Seveso II), EUR 17690. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Systems, Informatics and Safety, Major Accident Hazards Bureau, Ispra for other aspects of guidance, see Mitchison, N. 

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