Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS)
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently finalized the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards known as CFATS (6 CFR Part 27) for the purposes of regulating the security of high-risk chemical facilities.
The purpose of 6 CFR Part 27 or CFATS is to lower the risk posed by certain chemical facilities. CFATS requires chemical facilities to provide DHS with information to determine whether they are a covered facility and therefore required to meet certain security performance requirements. In order to identify the covered facilities, DHS has identified a list of chemicals of interest (also known as Appendix A in the standard) for preliminary screening based upon the belief that such chemicals, if released, stolen, diverted, and/or contaminated, have the potential to create significant human health and/or life consequences.
The University of Maryland must determine whether we must comply with the facility security standards in CFATS. The first step that UMB must take to determine whether it is covered under CFATS is to determine whether it possesses any of the COIs at or above the listed Screening Threshold Quantity (STQ) campus wide. If we possess a COI at or above the STQ, the university must register with the DHS and submit the inventory of all COIs that exceed the STQ. This inventory is called a Top Screen by DHS. If necessary, the University must submit a Top Screen by March 18, 2008.
In order to meet this short deadline, Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) is collecting information regarding laboratory chemical inventories. EHS has created an on-line database for each Principal Investigator (PI) to input their inventory of COIs. Please visit the following URL http://www.ehs.umaryland.edu/cheminv/ where you will receive additional information regarding CFATS and instruction on how to enter your information. The information must be entered by individual laboratory. At this web site you will be able to download the list of COIs. While we believe that few of the laboratories on campus will have specific COIs, there are very common chemicals that DHS is concerned about. Some examples are Nitric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and sodium azide. We are asking that all PIs input their inventory no later than March 7, 2008. If you DO NOT have any of the COIs in your laboratory inventory, there is an option to select a negative response which must be selected per laboratory. |
