Background: MPH 632: Environmental and Occupational Health Risk Assessment outlined a real-world scenario involving dangerous chemical exposure for this assignment. The scenario involved a mid-size city which served as home to a few chemical production plants. The 10 mile radius around the downtown area included a population of 744,000 people and the chemical plants employed 6,500 workers. One of these plants produced toxic carbamate pesticides which produce toxic intermediates, including the highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC). This particular facility also stores methyl isocyanate and must move the end products to a production facility off site via rail car. This rail line this car takes is also used by passengers and goes within 5 miles of the city center. The purpose of this assignment was to employ skills of recognizing hazards in need of risk management and forming a communication plan in a high-stress environment to minimize the risk.
Key Questions: Students were asked to take this information, produce a guideline for managing the risks involved with the scenario, and explain how we would implement our recommendations. We were to cover occupational health, public health, and ecological health hazards.
Method: To begin the assignment, I reviewed our coursework from the semester and found supplemental information on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website as well as hazardous substance fact sheets for MIC. I reviewed all of this information and gathered the best possible methods for removing as much risk as possible from this situation. Once these methods were chosen and outlined at the beginning of my assignment, I moved on to explaining how to implement these solutions.
Findings: Throughout this exercise I identified many areas of concern. There was a lack of competency, continuing education, training, mentions of PPE, and policies and procedures included in the scenario. There was no mention of communication and education on risks and response initiatives to those residing in the surrounding area. Largely, the storage requirements of chemicals and waste was at the forefront for causing risk. Understanding the risks involved with movement of the byproducts was also overlooked. Emergency planning and preparedness was a large finding of possible increased risk as well.
Recommendations: This scenario could benefit greatly by implementing safety standards (ventilation, PPE, equipment safety checks, procedure manuals, continuing education, emergency operation, etc.) and measuring employee exposure to ensure workplace safety. Employees should meet educational requirements and take part in yearly policy review and drill simulation. Additionally, community members need to be aware of the risks posed to the geographical area as well as emergency response plans for residents. MIC storage and movement of waste needs to be kept cool and have temperature monitoring systems, proper fire extinguishment equipment nearby, and tanks need to be grounded. External hazards such as sparks from the rail car need to be eliminated and employees traveling with the waste needs to receive full training of the chemical and how to handle spills or other emergencies. If at all possible, I suggested using an alternate route to transport the waste, preferably not on a system that passengers are able to use, and does not go close to the city center.
Public health significance: Exposure to any chemical can be harmful or even fatal, but especially MIC. Management of these risks is vital to the health and safety of employees and community members. MIC is an odorless gas, making it more dangerous as it cannot be detected by humans if there is exposure. A few of the health effects noted include pulmonary edema, injury to lung, cornea damage, chemical burns, reproductive effects, and death (CDC, 2014).
References:
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Medical Management Guidelines for Methyl Isocyanate. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry: Toxic Substances Portal. https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/MMG/MMGDetails.aspx?mmgid=628&toxid=116. Accessed March 25, 2023.
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