DHS Overdoses on Chemical Security

I was flipping through the science blogs - something I need to do more frequently - and I found this interesting article in Chemical & Engineering News. DHS is coming out with details on what it expects to track in the form of "dangerous chemicals," and the language suggests that colleges - and one could postulate, even high school laboratories - could be referred to as "chemical facilities" and be forced to take security precautions against terrorists.

Academic institutions across the country claim they will have to spend countless hours and scarce resources on documenting very small amounts of chemicals in many different labs that are scattered across sometimes sprawling campuses. Many of the chemicals, they say, are in minute quantities and often in dilute aqueous solutions and thus pose minimal security risks.

"The rule was intended for chemical facilities, not laboratories that maintain small quantities of chemicals at levels that can't cause catastrophic events," says Erik A. Talley, Weill Cornell Medical College's health and safety head.

Academia's collective angst was triggered by DHS's call for comments on a list of chemicals covered by the regulations. DHS issued this list as Appendix A on April 9.

Once the appendix was released, academics realized they will have to report the amount and location of listed chemicals in excess of a so-called screening threshold quantity. For 104 chemicals on the list, the threshold is "any amount."

The proposed language is here on the DHS site. I learned a new acronym - CVI, Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information. You can read all about the regulations, which get quite complex. I'm more interested in how DHS selected the chemicals in its draft Appendix A. According to the draft language, the criteria were three "security issues" - not safety issues.

1. Release - DHS believes that certain quantities of toxic, flammable, or explosive chemicals or materials, if released from a facility, have the potential for significant adverse consequences for human life or health.
2. Theft or Diversion - DHS believes that certain chemicals or materials, if stolen or diverted, have the potential to be used as weapons or easily converted into weapons using simple chemistry, equipment or techniques in order to create significant adverse consequences for human life or health.
3. Sabotage or Contamination - DHS believes that certain chemicals or materials, if mixed with readily-available materials, have the potential to create significant adverse consequences for human life or health.

In the appendix, DHS lists the "chemicals of interest" and identifies a "Standard Threshold Quantity" 0r STQ (goody, another acronym) and its chemical abstract service (CAS) number. The issue, as the article notes, is that DHS has refused to limit the definition of "chemical facility" to apply to large-scale industry plants, and that 104 of the chemicals on the eight pages have a STQ of "any amount." Now, as a guy who works with scientists and engineers, I know that "any amount" is usually defined as "greater than zero." Problem...

The list has a number of old and current chemical warfare agents and their precursors listed; that's to be expected. But among the "any amount" chemicals are:

• Carbon monoxide (hmmm, does that make my car a "chemical facility"?)
• Anhydrous hydrogen chloride, used to treat cotton
• Hydrogen cyanide, used in a number of manufacturing processes
• Methyl bromide, a common pesticide
• Sulfur fluoride, a fumigant
• Tungsten hexafluoride, used in semiconductor manufacturing

Fortunately, for you explosives buffs, you can hold up to 2000 pounds of trinitrotoluene or RDX/HMX mixtures...

Seriously, though, this is pretty insane. You thought TSA and its dreams of cataloguing all the passengers in flight was a sole passion? These regulations and breadth promises to create a huge bureaucracy for someone's pipe dream. DHS promises to fine-tune the chemical list in June, but I think anyone who views this draft regulation can instantly see why the chemical industry did not want the federal government involved in overseeing its security measures. These ideas are overkill, and DHS needs to back off these measures to come up with reasonable ideas that don't drive up industry's costs of doing business (and make overseas products more desirable) because of overinflated EPA casualty estimates.

Comments

[CBH]

I guess the local farmer's co-op is going to be installing metal detectors at the entrance so nobody can get close to the fertilizers.

[Grandjester]

It's fucked up enough that due to liability/product safety concerns that you can't buy a decent chemistry set for your kid in this country and will probably need DHS clearance to buy a microscope. But now they are making it a pain in the ass for schools and UNIVERSITIES to carry the chemicals needed for education and research. Put that hand in hand with the fundies war on science and it's no wonder EU and Asia are kicking our ass in science education.

[CBH]

G J - Don't worry, the EU Politically Correct crowd will end up getting in the Security mix over there and they'll regulate themselves into the Dark Ages. We'll be back ahead of them in no time.

I'm curious how they handle these kinds of issues in Asia - anyone happen to know how Japan handles CBRN issues? With as few domestic problems as they have, I'm curious what the policy reaction was and is to the sarin in the subway.

[Barry]

I smell a rat. DHS deliberately refrained from dealing with chemical plant security after 9/11, due to GOP wishes. What it looks like now is that they figure that they can keep anything from being done, by going nutcase. Require huge amounts of documentation and security, for even trivial amounts of chemicals.

The fact that explosives are less regulated is a giveaway.

[BGG]

This sounds a lot like why (on the bio side of things) some bioscientists have argued for self-regulation w/ref to molbio and new technology. The government just can't regulate everything this way, nor do the committees constructing these policies always have a full understanding of the impacts of new requirements.

One note - universities already do have to have permits for and account for many kinds of chemicals, organisms, and equipment. I don't know how much more restrictive it would be to account for some more, but I'm sure there would be a great deal of complaint.

[Smiley]

I didn't read the language but I did scan through the list "chemicals of interest." I'm not sure of DHS's intent with their list but they seem clueless in several areas.

There are numerous sources of information in the open literature to make nasty things. For example, here's a link to an article published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society:

http://www.technion.ac.il/~keinanj/pub/122.pdf

(J, Please feel free to edit.)

Only high school chemistry is required.

(BTW, I'm just a country boy that's been educated beyond my intelligence.)

There are many other examples. I shudder to think what a chemist could do if motivated properly. Same goes for a biologist, biochemical engineer, chemical engineer, etc...

I guess DHS will start banning/burning books and magazines, killing the intellectuals, forbid teaching chemistry and microbiology,...

Smiley

[Smiley]

I saw your list of items banned in "any quantity" in your post.

Hydrogen cyanide is banned in any qunatity. Hmmmmm. I guess I'll have to mix sodium cyanide (or potassium cyanide) and hydrochloric acid (or another acid).

Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone.

Smiley

[Harry]

First off- RTFM! Read the regs. These are not "banned" chemicals. They are chemicals that if you have them in the quantities listed quantity, you will have to fill out a screening application, the so-called "top screen". In all liklihood, many, if not most of the facilities that have to fill out the screening application will not be regulated.

Second- the regs (and list)are interim final regs, and will not be finalized for a while, pending the completion of the comment period.

There is a good possibility that the list will be modified- if the list bothers you- you ought to file a comment, rather than whine.

Finally- If you have any background in chemical synthesis, you can see that the "any quantity" chemicals are (in general) those which can be used as precursors for chemical agents, such as nitrogen and sulfur mustards (blistering agents), and organophosphate agents (nerve agents).

I have a number of concerns about the regulations myself, but I have at least bothered to read them before spouting off.

My $0.02 YMMV