The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Process Safety Management Standards (PSM) are associated with highly hazardous chemicals and establishes a management program using technology, procedures and best practices.

According to OSHA: “PSM is critically important to facilities that store highly hazardous chemicals. The program helps prevent fires, explosions, large chemical spills, toxic gas releases and runaway chemical reactions.” The goal of PSM is to protect employees, contractors and emergency responders and protect facilities, equipment and neighboring structures.

Much of the comments that members of the IWLA Chemical Council members made were related to the unique qualities of third-party closed-container warehousing facilities. Like other regulations, the rule is written to encompass a wide range of facilities that are engaged in more risky, varied operations. In this respect, many rules don’t apply to IWLA member companies and therefore create confusion with compliance.  For example:

• The section titled “Information on Process Technology” is applicable to a processing facility rather than a storage facility with closed-container storage.
• Warehouses do not generate information that goes into a Safety Data Sheet and therefore cannot verify the accuracy of the information.

Read the comments. IWLA will keep you updated on the PSM standards as needed.