On Tuesday, January 14, the CSB announced a new “incident report” tool, calling it a “new safety product to provide the public with more information about serious chemical incidents reported to the agency.” Through its announcement, the CSB released the first volume of incident reports. The CSB will be compiling summaries of incidents reported under its Accidental Release Reporting Rule (“ARRR”) and making them available to the public on the CSB’s website on a regular basis.
As for the first volume of incident reports, it covers 26 accidental release events, spanning in time from April 2020 to September 2023. Those events occurred in 15 states (California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas), and together, resulted in five fatalities, 17 serious injuries, and approximately $700 million in property damage. Each incident report includes a summary of the event and its probable cause. In its announcement, the CSB specifically calls out the events covered in the first volume:
Of the release, CSB Chairperson Steve Owens said:
The American people have a right to know about the kinds of dangerous chemical incidents that happen across this country every week. Since the CSB’s reporting rule went into effect, the agency has received hundreds of reports on incidents involving releases of hazardous chemicals that have put communities, workers, and the environment at serious risk.
He also stated, “Preparing these [i]ncident [r]eports and making them available to the public is an important next step in the CSB’s commitment to transparency and information-sharing.”
Since July 2022, the CSB has been posting overall data on its website about the incidents reported under the ARRR (most recently on October 23, 2024), including the name and location of the chemical facility involved in the incident, the date of the incident, and whether the incident involved a fatality, serious injury, or substantial property damage. However, the incident reports provide the public for the first time with a summary of the event and its probable cause. If you have any questions, please reach out to our national OSHA Workplace Safety Group. More to come. Stay tuned!
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