Developing A Facility Response Plan To Comply With the EPA

The EPA has been very proactive in requiring businesses, both large and small, to adhere to standards that prevent pollution activities through oil and chemical spills. Since August 1990, in response to public outrage over the Exxon Valdez incident, the Oil Pollution Act has been a law that puts the responsibility of prevention on industry. This law includes the requirement for businesses to file a Facility Response Plan (FRP) with the EPA.

The FRP requirement is specifically designed for businesses that meet certain conditions:

1.The facility has a total oil storage capacity greater than or equal to 42,000 gallons and transfers oil over water to/from vessels; or

2.The facility has a total oil storage capacity greater than or equal to one million gallons AND meets ONE of the following conditions:

Does not have sufficient secondary containment for each aboveground storage area

Is located at a distance such that a discharge from the facility could cause “injury” to fish, wildlife, and sensitive environments

Is located at a distance such that a discharge from the facility would shut down a public drinking water intake

Has had, within the past five years, a reportable discharge greater than or equal to 10,000 gallons

The EPA also considers whether a facility could cause substantial harm to the surrounding environment in the event of a spill or discharge or oil or chemicals into navigable waters, shorelines, or other groundwater. There are several test factors to assist in determining “substantial harm,” including storage of tanks, age of tanks and drums, drum management, oil and chemical transfer methods, as well as location.

The most efficient way of providing a sound FRP is to demonstrate ownership and use of proper spill containment equipment. This equipment can include overpack drums, spill pallets, oil drum racks and trucks, and spill containment berms.

Your FRP should include your current oil and chemical management plan to demonstrate worker training on spill prevention, with emphasis on their understanding of the correct use of the spill protection equipment within your facility. These things include storage of drums on drum pallets or spill pallets, use of drum racks for dispensing oil into safety cans, as well as working with oil storage tanks within the confines of a spill containment berm and the use of overpack drums for older drums and potentially-leaking drums.

Depending on your facility layout and workplan and your state’s FRP requirements, your FRP may not be exactly the same as another business. You can contact your EPA Regional Administrator to for more information to assist in the development of your FRP.

Previously published here.

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Rathi Niyogi is the CEO of CriticalTool, a national distributor of industrial equipment. If you thought this article was helpful, additional information on spill containment products can be found at http://www.IndustrialSafetyCabinets.com/

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Are Anxiety Disorder and Panic Attacks Genetic?

I’m often asked by clients whether or not there’s a genetic of hereditary component to anxiety disorder and panic attacks. That line of questioning usually leads into a discussion about how that person’s extended family seems to have an abundance of people with anxiety problems of one sort or another.

Without wanting to sound like a lawyer (Attorney), I have to say that the answer is yes. And no.

Sorry, but the data are not in on a firm answer one way or another. Just because you and a couple of your cousins have episodes of out-of-the-blue panic, or just because you have high levels of anxiety, doesn’t mean that you’ve inherited those responses.

Many of the people who come to me with anxiety problems have extended families filled with exciting, excitable, interesting and vivacious people with all sorts of anxiety problems. Then again, just as many clients who have worrying levels of fear of public speaking or more general anxiety, come from families who look like they invented the term ‘calm’ then added ‘cool’ and ‘collected’ to it.

In other words, my own empirical data don’t support the idea of a strong genetic pre-disposition either way. As someone who is scrupulous about research methods, I’m most certainly not suggesting that my random observations constitute proper research methods. I’m always cross when I come across someone making pronouncements based on their unmonitored observations with no control groups. What I am saying is that for more than twenty years, my clients have been fairly evenly spread across the spectrum of people who come from families where everyone is anxious to those families where they’re alone in their anxious response to life.

The Anxiety Gene

As many of you know, either through your own experience, or as the friend of someone who experiences them, panic attacks occur at random and usually out-of-the-blue. Of course if a person experiences great panic in a particular setting, a cinema (movie theater) or in an elevator, then there may well be some predictability about the way s/he’ll respond next time they’re in an elevator or they’re invited to the movies.

Either way, whether unexpected or anticipated, panic episodes can really destroy a person’s confidence about moving freely in the world. Early this century, scientists at the Centre for Medical and Molecular Biology in Barcelona discovered a genetic basis for most panic attacks. According to an article in irishhealth.com “Scientists found that a small region on chromosome 15 was duplicated in 90% of affected family members. The duplicated region, known as DUP25, contains more than 60 genes, of which only 23 have so far been identified.

According to the scientists, DUP25 appears to increase the risk of anxiety disorders. They are now trying to identify exactly which genes are responsible. This could lead to the development of drugs that suppress those genes, however this may take a number of years.

Besides, I’m not at all sure that drugs which suppress genes are necessarily the best route to take. By all means, I understand how upsetting and sometimes devastating panic attacks and anxiety disorder can be. But there are many highly successful strategies you can use if anxiety and panic attacks are part of what makes you the wonderful person you are. It’s a bit like the world in the film Gattaca isn’t it? Trying to create so-called perfect human beings via genetic engineering.

If you want to read more, the New Scientist website is a great place to start. Alternatively, I thoroughly recommend that you read articles published by “The Anxiety Disorders Association of America” (ADAA)- you’ll find them easily in any search engine. Dr Reid Wilson’s website anxieties.com is another wonderful source of information and advice about how to tell if your symptoms are anxiety and how to conquer those inappropriate emotional reactions.

For now, may I suggest that whether you have a strong genetic disposition to anxiety or not, the main name of the game is this. You can conquer anxiety so that it becomes a natural motivating factor in your life, not a black leaden mass which smothers your joy. As you’ll read in my other articles, your attitude to your anxiety is the key to the extent to which it has an impact on how you live your life. Indeed, my counseling Practice and my e-book Calming Words focus on finding solutions to your anxiety and panic attacks rather than on trying to work out why you have them.

Author’s Note: Previously published here.

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Dr Jeannette Kavanagh has a counseling and coaching Practice in Melbourne Australia, to help people find their unique solutions to anxiety and panic attacks. For over two decades, Jeannette has helped thousands of people overcome anxiety and panic attacks. Visit her website http://www.calmingwords.com/ to sign up here for a FREE MP3 Relax on Cue.

Read more articles written by Dr Jeannette Kavanagh

How to Treat Your Anxiety and Panic Attacks

Next to Depression, one of the most common disorders which affects an estimated 2.4 million people in America alone, is anxiety disorder. Anxiety can manifest as a generalized anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety and agoraphobia. Anxiety disorder can be mild or so totally disabling that the person is confined to her or his home. All forms of anxiety can be extremely frightening to those who experience it frequently, but many individuals have found comfort in the fact that anxiety disorders can be treated.

What are Panic Attacks?

Panic attacks are a sudden flow of overwhelming anxiety and fear, sometimes amounting to terror, which takes over the individual’s body. During a panic attack, the individual will experience a pounding heart rate, difficulty to breathing and may also experience dizziness and a feeling of nausea. In some cases, the person having an attack may also experience a feeling that they are going crazy or even dying. If left untreated, these episodes of panic can result in panic disorder and other conditions which can make it extremely difficult for the individual to enjoy everyday life. However, effective treatment is available, and as with other conditions, the sooner you seek treatment, the better.

In most cases, an episode of panic will strike out of the blue, without any warning. Often, there seems to be no reason for the panic attacks. They can occur at times where you’re feeling relaxed or even asleep. For many people who experience anxiety, an attack will commonly occur when you are away from home as this is when you will feel less safe and secure. Symptoms can present abruptly and can last for up to thirty minutes. A typical attack of panic fuelled by adrenaline will usually see the symptoms reach their full potential within ten minutes.

Symptoms Of A Panic Episode

The main symptoms are:

Shortness of breath

Heart palpitations (often the person will think they’re experiencing a heart attack)

Sweating, Nausea, Trembling/shaking

A feeling of being detached from your body/ out of body experience; and

A fear or feeling that you are dying

Someone who has experienced one or two panic attacks will continue to live their life without any further attacks. However, in other cases, people find that through their panic attacks they have entered what we call the panic attack cycle. That cycle includes:

Anticipating, expecting that a particular place or activity will lead to an attack because it has in the past;

Worry which accompanies that anticipation. The worry or fear is about experiencing another attack; and

Not surprisingly, the anticipation brings on the feelings of panic and the person wants to escape that intense adrenaline-fuelled fear.

After escaping, or sometimes just avoiding, the person feels stupid and blames herself/himself for being ‘crazy’.

Soon merely thinking about things that have caused an episode of panic in the past is enough to generate those feelings. Avoidance becomes the way to cope because the person is afraid of feeling such out-of-control terror.

Agoraphobia

When someone allows that fear of the next attack of fear to take hold, they can develop agoraphobia which means fear of the marketplace, or intense fear about being away from home. People with agoraphobia fear having a panic attack in places where they’ve had them in the past and where they feel it’s difficult to escape the situation. Places such as concert halls, Malls, sports stadiums, going to school meetings, attending lectures at College – these can all trigger fear. It is for this reason that people with agoraphobia choose to remain at home as much as possible. Home is where they feel most safe.

However frightening it may be for someone to experience any of these conditions, there is security in knowing that they can be treated. The most effective treatment is called Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). It works by focusing on the thinking patterns which trigger an anxiety and panic attacks. This helps the individual to look at their fears more closely, and changing their reaction to those thoughts.

If you currently suffer from anxiety or panic attacks, you are not alone. Nor are panic attacks something you have to endure for the rest of your life. There are many proven ways to treat all forms of anxiety disorder. By learning about the condition itself and the reasons why you experience the panic attacks, you’ll be on the journey out of anxiety and panic attacks back to a normal life once again.

Article also published here.

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Dr Jeannette Kavanagh has a counseling and coaching Practice in Melbourne Australia, to help people find their unique solutions to anxiety and panic attacks. For over two decades, Jeannette has helped thousands of people overcome anxiety and panic attacks. Visit her website http://www.calmingwords.com/ to sign up here for a FREE MP3 Relax on Cue.

Read more articles written by Dr Jeannette Kavanagh