A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiative will emphasize compliance efforts at chemical facilities using hydrogen fluoride (HF).
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) applauded the initiative.
In February 2023, the CSB sent a letter to EPA urging the agency to begin emphasizing inspections and compliance actions at facilities that use HF.
EPA released its updated National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives (NECIs), which for the first time include an emphasis on inspecting and addressing noncompliance at facilities that use highly toxic HF.
The agency pointed to “recent incidents involving the release or potential release of highly toxic hydrogen fluoride … and concerns about the potentially catastrophic consequences of a hydrogen fluoride release,” when it announced the initiative.
Several incidents involving HF releases or near misses were investigated by the CSB recently, including:
- a major fire and explosions at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) Refinery in 2019 that resulted in the release of more than 5,000 pounds of HF into the air
- the 2018 Husky Superior Refinery explosion involving a near-miss with a nearby HF storage tank, and
- an explosion in 2015 at the former ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, California, that saw two tanks of modified HF struck by debris.
