Hazardous Chemical incidents are the unintentional release of one or more hazardous substances which could harm human health or the environment. Chemical hazards are systems where chemical accidents could occur under certain circumstances. Such events include fires, explosions, leakages or releases of toxic or hazardous materials that can cause people illness, injury, disability or death.
The chemical industry has become very important over the last 100 years, and many chemicals are used in everyday life. This has made it more likely that people, animals, and the environment will be exposed to or contaminated by many substances that are harmful to health. Exposures can happen in the workplace or on the road, when chemicals get into goods by mistake, or when chemicals are released on purpose. The recent use of chemical weapons in war and assassinations shows that actions to get people ready for chemical events must cover both planned and unplanned ones. No matter if a chemical accident happens by chance or on purpose, all public and environmental health situations need to be planned for.
Hazardous Chemical Incidents can be a lot of different things that happen when a chemical material is released or could be released
1. that hurts people, animals, or the environment, whether on purpose or by accident;
2. that could require too many resources from the state and local government and the private sector; and/or
3. that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and/or the United States Coast Guard (USCG), as co-chairs of the National Response Team (NRT) for Oil and Chemical Spills under the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP), thinks needs help or will need it.
Keep in mind that response activities may be allowed in response to threats of dangerous substance releases that have not yet happened. Also, many chemical events are small and do not need NCP-directed response activities. Also, if the material that was released isn’t a hazardous waste, the event may need government help under different laws than the NCP. The NCP also doesn’t cover releases into drinking water sources that happen naturally as the water system breaks down.
When there is a chemical accident, chemical “exposures” and/or “contamination” can hurt people, animals, and/or the environment. Chemical exposure is when a chemical substance is taken in by the body. Contamination, on the other hand, means having a substance on your body or clothes. Chemical substances can be dangerous for people and animals if they eat, breathe, or touch them on the skin. So, dangerous chemical exposure or contamination can come from food, water, the air, or objects that have been contaminated. Chemicals that move around in the environment (for example, through air and water movement) also raise the risk of contamination and exposure for people and animals.
The steps first rescuers must take to start an incident reaction depend on whether a chemical release has contaminated the environment or exposed people, animals, or both.
Size and Severity of possible Hazardous Chemical Incidents
There is a wide range in the size and severity of possible chemical accidents that could hurt people and the environment. Accidents that happen while chemicals are being transported happen a lot of the time, but intentional chemical attacks only happen very rarely. All of these things should be taken into account when planning and making choices for preparedness activities, because the level of difficulty of the reactions needed will also depend on the size and type of the substance released. For example, a large-scale terrorist attack with a persistent chemical could cause a lot of injuries from exposure and need decontamination operations. On the other hand, a small-scale accidental release of a chemical vapor could cause exposure but not contamination, so it might not need as complicated of a response. During the reaction, there will also need to be more resources and careful planning because of the release of pollutants or contaminants that could reasonably be expected to have negative health effects upon contact.
The federal government’s reaction to toxic incidents is made up of several systems that work together to handle incidents of all levels, from those that aren’t very bad to those that could have huge effects. There are times when the state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments and/or the Responsible Party (RP) can handle the reaction well on their own. The NCP may be used when events get bigger and reactions get more complicated. This means that a Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) from the EPA or USCG is needed. When the worst things happen, like when the President declares a disaster under the Stafford Act, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) helps FOSC officials by better coordinating resources under the National Response Framework2. (For more information, see the part of this paper called “Federal Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.”) In the past, there haven’t been many high-impact chemical accidents that required a Stafford Act statement. Two examples are the chlorine barge accident in Louisiana and Mississippi in 1962 and the removal of the Love Canal Chemical site in New York in 1978. Recently, an emergency has been called under the Stafford Act because of a chemical spill in West Virginia in 2014 (see below) and the water pollution in Flint, Michigan in 2016.
Emergency situations of Hazardous Chemical Incidents
Emergency situations that aren’t so bad that they need a Stafford Act statement can still make it hard for communities to react and get back on their feet. This paper will give you important information you need to plan a good answer. A few chemical accidents are quickly talked about here to set the stage for these talks of key reaction and recovery actions. There are three types of events shown: industrial accidents, which include things that happen in the chemical supply and agricultural industries; transportation accidents, which include things that happen when large amounts of chemicals are moved; and deliberate events, in which chemicals were used to hurt people.
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