Assessing and Comparing Risks of Transportation, Manipulation and Storage of Hazardous Substances: A Case Study in Italy. G. Marsili, Viale Regina Elena, 299 - 00161 Roma, telephone +390649902878, fax +390649387083, e-mail marsili@iss.it; and C. Ferrari and M. E. Soggiu, Istituto Superiore di Sanità - Roma - Italy
Regulations come in force in many EU countries strongly recommend that a risk assessment is performed in order to plan land use and emergency response of sites in which at-risk plants are located (Directives 82/501/CEE and 96/82/CE). In particular, a risk assessment is required for the industrial activities which manipulate and/or store hazardous chemicals but it is not required for the transportation of dangerous goods. In the practice, it means that risks of industrial areas are usually managed by assuming that risk due to the transportation of dangerous substances is negligible.
In order to verify this assumption and to quantify the bias it could introduce in decision making, an area’s risk assessment was performed for an industrial site in which a refinery, a petrochemical factory, a paper mill, two LPG storage plants and many other small industrial activities are located. In particular, area’s risk was estimated for fixed plants, by standardising safety reports prepared for regulatory purposes, and for transportation of dangerous goods by carrying out two specific surveys, one of which in cooperation with the municipal police, aimed to identify and quantify the hazardous materials:
Results, reported as social and individual death risks, show the comparability of the considered risks and consequently suggest that neglecting in the overall risk assessment of industrial sites the transport of dangerous goods by road, train, ship and pipe can significantly affect decision making about area’s risk management and cannot allow to identify the most effective initiatives able to reduce risk or to mitigate the possible consequences of an accidental event.
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