A State Voluntary Cleanup, a 24-Hour Laborer, and a Hissing Drum
A 12-acre former electroplating shop is being cleaned up under a state voluntary remediation agreement, not a Superfund listing. A Phase II investigation found 38 unlabeled and corroded drums behind the plating building, chromium and nickel in surface soil, and trichloroethylene at 850 µg/L in groundwater. The remedial contractor has hired a six-person crew to excavate and stockpile 2,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and to stage the drums for off-site disposal. One laborer, hired three weeks ago, has completed only a 24-hour HAZWOPER course; the site superintendent holds a 40-hour certificate from 2019 with no refresher since. During the first week an excavator blows a hydraulic hose and about 5 gallons of fluid lands on the soil stockpile. Separately, a worker pries the lid off one drum and hears a hiss as the lid bulges upward. The project manager asks whether HAZWOPER applies at all, since this is a state voluntary program rather than a Superfund site.
1. Does 29 CFR 1910.120 apply here, and what training does each of the two named employees actually need?
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HAZWOPER applies. 1910.120(a)(1) reaches cleanups well beyond Superfund: (a)(1)(iii) covers corrective actions at RCRA-permitted facilities and (a)(1)(iv) covers voluntary cleanups recognized by a state. A state voluntary remediation agreement is exactly that kind of recognized action, and the site is an uncontrolled hazardous waste site with drums, contaminated soil, and a groundwater plume. There is no exemption for state-run programs.
Training: the laborer's 24 hours are not enough. The 24-hour course plus one day of supervised field experience is only for employees with limited exposure - people who visit occasionally for a specific, limited task and who do not perform regular site work. Excavating 2,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil, staging drums, and working in the exclusion zone daily is regular work: he needs the 40-hour course plus three days of field experience under a trained supervisor before he can don PPE and enter.
The superintendent needs the 40-hour course plus the 8-hour supervisor course, and his annual 8-hour refresher is overdue - the certificate is current for only one year. He should not supervise another entry until the refresher is complete.
2. The 5-gallon hydraulic spill on the stockpile: is this an incidental release or an emergency release, and what governs the answer?
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Most likely incidental, but you have to make that call on the record rather than assume it. 1910.120(a)(3) excludes releases where the substance and quantity can be absorbed or neutralized by employees in the immediate area and the release does not pose a safety or health hazard to employees in the vicinity. Walk the factors: hydraulic oil is a low-volatility petroleum product with a high flash point; 5 gallons is small; a spill kit with pads and booms is on site; there is no fire, no toxic gas, and no nearby drain. Two people can absorb it in minutes, so it falls outside emergency response.
What it is not is a license to skip PPE or waste handling. The fluid soaked contaminated soil, so the spent absorbent and stained soil are newly generated waste that must be containerized and characterized, and the spill should be logged. If the same hose had failed on a drum of plating waste, or the fluid had reached a drain, the analysis flips to an emergency release that these employees cannot handle.
3. The worker reports that a drum lid is hissing and bulging. What do you do, and what do you explicitly not do?
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Do not open it further, and do not let the crew investigate it. A bulging lid with escaping gas means internal pressure - gas generation from biological or chemical reaction, or a thermally unstable material. Hissing drums have killed people when the lid let go.
Immediate steps: stop work in the area, move non-essential personnel upwind of the exclusion zone to the distance the HASP specifies, and keep ignition sources and vehicles out. Do not move or upright the drum unless the HASP's drum-handling procedure and a qualified person authorize it. Establish standoff monitoring - LEL, oxygen, PID, and, if the site history hints at cyanide or sulfide waste, colorimetric tubes for HCN or H2S on an extension pole; thermal imaging can show an exothermic reaction. Record the drum's location and condition and sample the headspace only with a remote device.
The decision then belongs to the HSO and the disposal contractor's chemist. If the drum is hot, smoking, or venting visibly, evacuate and call the fire department rather than continue sampling.