The law
The Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH) which came into force on 1 April 1999 and are amended by the Control of Major Accident Hazards (Amendment) Regulations 2005 from 30 June 2005. They implement Council Directive 96/82/EC known as the Seveso II Directive, as amended by Directive 2003/105/EC and replaced the Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1984 (CIMAH).
COMAH applies mainly to the chemical industry, but also to some storage activities and other industries where threshold quantities of dangerous substances identified in the Regulations are kept or used.
The aim of the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH) and the Control of Major Accident Hazards (Amendment) Regulations 2005 is to prevent and mitigate the effects on people and the environment of those major incidents involving dangerous substances.
The Regulations are enforced by a Competent Authority (CA) consisting of:
- HSE and the Environment Agency (EA) in England and Wales
- HSE and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in Scotland.
Key duties for operators
Lower-tier sites
Notify basic details to the Competent Authority. Operators of all establishments, subject to the Regulations, must notify certain basic details to the CA. The key points which have to be included in the notification are;
- name and address of operator
- address of establishment
- name or position of person in charge
- details of dangerous substances on site
- site activities
- environmental details
Regulation 5 requires lower-tier operators to prepare a document setting out their policy for preventing major accidents (a major accident prevention policy or MAPP).
The MAPP sets down what is to be achieved and should include a summary and references to the safety management system that will be used to put the policy into action. The finer details will be in other documentation relating to the establishment e.g. operating procedures, training records and audit reports.
Top-tier operators
Top-tier operators have to comply with the above requirement for a MAPP except that they do not have to prepare a separate document - their Safety Reports (see below) have to include the information that lower-tier operators provide in their MAPPs. They also have the following additional duties:
Prepare a safety report which must include:
- a policy on how to prevent and mitigate major accidents;
- a management system for implementing that policy;
- an effective method for identifying any major accidents that might occur;
- measures to prevent and mitigate major accidents;
- information on safety precautions built into the plant and equipment when it was designed and constructed;
- details of measures to limit consequences of any major accident that might happen; and
- information on the site emergency plan, which will be used by the local authorities to prepare an off-site emergency plan.
Safety reports will be made available to the public via the CA registers, subject to safeguards for national security, commercial and personal confidentiality.
The safety report needs to be kept up to date. If there are any modifications to the plant, the way it is operated or if new facts or information become available, the safety report must be reviewed and, if necessary, revised at the time. It must be reviewed after five years even if there have not been any changes. The operator must notify the CA of any revision and if the five-year review does not lead to a revision.
Local authorities play a key role by preparing and testing off-site emergency plans for dealing with the consequences of major accidents. To fulfil this role they need information from operators. Details can be found in Schedule 5 to the Regulations. To determine their exact needs, Operators will need to hold discussions with their local authorities.
People who may be affected by an accident at a COMAH site, must be notified and given information without having to ask for it. The details are given in Schedule 6 of the Regulations but the notification should include details of;
- the dangerous substances on site
- the possible major accidents and their consequences and
- what to do in the event of an accident.
As previously mentioned, Safety Reports will be available to public viewing ( subject to conditions ) via Competent Authority registers.
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