CSB Safety Video: Terminal Failure - Fire at ITC

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has released a new safety video on its investigation into the massive March 17, 2019, fire that burned for three days at the Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC) facility in Deer Park, Texas.

The CSB's new safety video, titled “Terminal Failure: Fire at ITC”, includes an animation of the incident and commentary from CSB Chairperson Steve Owens and Investigator-In-Charge Crystal Thomas. The CSB’s final investigation report on the incident was released in July 2023.

At the time of the incident, the ITC facility housed 242 aboveground storage tanks, which were used to store petrochemical products for various companies. Each tank could hold up to 80,000 barrels of flammable petrochemical liquids, including naphtha, toluene, xylene, and other gas blends. On the morning of March 17, 2019, a circulation pump on one of those tanks, known as Tank 80-8, catastrophically failed, allowing a large quantity of a flammable liquid blend of butane and naphtha to escape from the tank and accumulate on the ground around it. The release went unnoticed and continued for approximately thirty minutes before flammable vapors collecting around the tank ignited and caused a massive fire. Once the fire erupted, ITC was unable to isolate or stop the release.  The fire burned for three days, destroying 15 of the 80,000-barrel tanks and their contents, causing more than $150 million in property damage at the facility, and leading to several shelter-in-place orders that seriously disrupted the local community.

The incident also significantly impacted the environment.  A containment wall around the tanks breached and released an estimated 470,000–523,000 barrels of hydrocarbon and petrochemical products, firefighting foam, and contaminated water, which entered an adjacent bayou and eventually reached the Houston Ship Channel. A seven-mile stretch of the Channel was closed, along with several waterfront parks in Harris County and the City of LaPorte, due to the contamination.

In the video CSB Chairperson Steve Owens states, “The incident at the ITC terminal resulted from several serious failures at the facility. In particular, ITC lacked monitors to alert operators that the pump had failed. And ITC had no remotely operated emergency isolation valves that could have safely stopped the release of the flammable liquid. The tank farm’s design also meant that other tanks were highly vulnerable. Once the pump failed, it was too late to prevent a catastrophic fire from happening.”

As in the CSB’s final report, the safety video covers five key safety issues that contributed to the incident: 

1. Pump Mechanical Integrity. ITC did not have a formal mechanical integrity procedure to maintain the integrity of Tank-80-8 and its associated equipment, including the Tank 80-8 circulation pump.
2. Flammable Gas Detection System. Tank 80-8 was not equipped with a flammable gas detention system to warn personnel of a hazardous atmosphere resulting from loss of containment from the tank or its associated equipment.
3. Remotely Operated Emergency Isolation Valves. Tank 80-8 and other tanks in the tank farm were not equipped with remotely operated emergency isolation valves designed to mitigate process releases remotely from a safe location.
4. Tank Farm Design. Elements of the tank farm design, including tank spacing, subdivisions, engineering controls for pumps located inside the containment area, and drainage systems allowed the fire to spread to other tanks within the tank farm.
5. PSM and RMP Applicability. ITC did not apply a formal process safety management (PSM) program to Tank 80-8 because neither the OSHA PSM standard nor the EPA Risk Management Program (RMP) rule applied to the tank and its associated equipment due to exemptions contained in the regulations. 
   
   

The video also highlights safety recommendations made by the CSB to ITC, the American Petroleum Institute, OSHA, and the EPA.

Chairperson Owens concludes the video by saying, “A serious gap in federal regulations also contributed to the severity of this event.  We believe that our recommendations, particularly to OSHA and EPA, to expand regulatory oversight of these kinds of chemicals and facilities will help ensure that a similar incident does not occur in the future.”

About the CSB

The CSB is an independent, non-regulatory federal agency whose mission is to drive chemical safety change through independent investigations to protect people and the environment. The agency’s board members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. CSB investigations look into all aspects of chemical incidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure as well as inadequacies in regulations, industry standards, and safety management systems. The CSB does not issue citations or fines but makes safety recommendations to companies, industry organizations, labor groups, and regulatory agencies such as OSHA and EPA. For more information, please visit www.csb.gov.