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Updates, Comments & Other Reports
December 2008
Approximately 7,179 facilities have been assigned a preliminary tier designation
to date. Of these, over 400 are subject exclusively to the regulations because
they store gasoline. ILTA continues to desire a face-to-face meeting with DHS
to discuss how it is that CFATS relates to gasoline facilities as presenting the
risk of “explosion” hazard. Preliminary tiered high-risk facilities who
re-submitted a Top Screen in November are expected to receive the results from
the re-tiering process by the end of the year along with new SVA submission
deadlines will be designated.
November 2008
API recently issued industry comments on the DHS draft Risk-Based Performance
Standards as they relate to gasoline and unmanned facilities. To view these
comments, click
here.
October 2008
DHS has issued additional Top-Screen questions for aboveground storage
facilities with tanks containing gasoline. These questions were mailed on
October 10 to preliminary tiered high-risk facilities where gasoline storage was
either their primary risk driver or where gasoline storage was a significant
tiering factor. These facilities may submit a revised Top-Screen to DHS by
Friday, November 14, 2008. Facilities who do so will be assigned a new deadline
for submitting their SVA to DHS. Preliminary-tiered facilities who chose not to
file a revised Top-Screen by November 14 must submit their SVA by January 14,
2009, unless expressly instructed otherwise by DHS.
ILTA, along with API and NPRA, recently submitted to DHS a technical paper
describing the flammability characteristics of gasoline. The purpose of the
paper was to provide DHS with an opportunity to assess and modify its
methodology to reflect the “real world” as it relates to the risks posed by
gasoline terminals. ILTA members may view a copy of this document within the
Members Only site. Please contact
Peter Weaver for more information.
August 2008
By basing its tier designations on an adaption of EPA’s RMP Comp model, despite
the model’s explicit exclusion of gasoline, DHS has overstated the potential for
mass casualties following a terrorist attack on a gasoline terminal. ILTA met
with a number of DHS officials to explain that there is no rational basis for
their assumed explosion risk. ILTA also requested a delay in the deadlines for
submitting the Security Vulnerability Assessments (SVAs) for all four tiers so
that DHS would have adequate time to reassess its positions. DHS denied ILTA’s
request, however, DHS did emphasize that it is meeting with companies
individually and is willing to grant extensions of filing deadlines in cases of
“severe hardship” to the company.
Moving forward, ILTA requests
your involvement! Please request a technical consultation on CFATS top
screen results with DHS by email at
csat@dhs.gov. Seek clarification on the consequence DHS attributes to
your facilities, specific examples should be discussed. Also, request a tiering
redetermination based on DHS’ overstatement of consequence severity. It is
critical that the regulated community demonstrate to DHS the problems with their
preliminary tier results for gasoline as a chemical of interest!
June 2008
DHS has issued preliminary teiring letters to all
top-screen responders. There were a total of 32,000 top screens received by
DHS. Of these, approximately 7,000 chemical facilities were assigned a
preliminarily Tier level of 1-4. Notifications letters included (1) the
chemical(s) of concern at the facility, (2) the “security concern,” namely
whether the risk is release/flammable, theft/diversion, sabotage, etc., and (3)
the preliminary tier level.
Tiered facilities are required
to submit a Security Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) for the entire facility,
although tier 4 may submit an alternate security plan (ASP) in lieu of an SVA,
provided it both meets DHS’s methodology requirements and addresses the issues
addressed in the top-screen letter. Note that the SVA process does not require
any physical changes to be made to a site at this time. Facilities must
complete their SVA’s based on the following schedule:
Preliminary Number
of Days to SVA due date,
Tier
facilities submit SVA “on or around”
1
219 90 9/25/2008
2
756 120 10/24/2008
3
1712 150 11/24/2008
4
4319 180 12/31/2008
The SVA must be conducted and
prepared in accordance with the CFATS requirements and shall include: (1) asset
characterization, (2) threat assessment, (3) security vulnerabilities and
countermeasures, (4) risk assessment and (5) countermeasures analysis. Note
that the SVA includes over 100 pages of questions and over 90 pages of
instructions. Additional information on CFATS and the SVA is available from
DHS.
It is unclear the amount of time that DHS will require to respond to SVA
submittals once received. However, once each SVA is reviewed and final facility
tier is approved, site-security plan (SSP) requirements will be assigned to each
facility, “most likely at the asset level.” The SSPs will then be due (using
another web-based tool) within 180 days, though they will also likely become due
on a staggered schedule.
The approx. 25,000
non-regulated facilities are NOT required to further report under CFATS. There
has been no comment as to whether this may change following the introduction of
new chemical security regulations during late 2009.
January 2008
DHS recently published the revised
CSAT Top-Screen User Manual (Version 1.3). Section 5.2 of the
new manual establishes significant changes to fuel reporting requirements. All
fuels must be reported, regardless of whether they contain any chemicals of
interest (COI).
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