South Africa has thousands of Dangerous Goods (DG) vehicle's traversing its roadways on a daily basis. Whether it's a tanker truck carrying sulphuric acid or cyanide, or a rigid dropside hauling liquid petroleum gas, these trucks are as susceptible to accidents as any other road going vehicle and as such pose a very real threat to the environment, writes Paul Collings.

As hauliers of potentially lethal payloads, DG transporters are subject to stringent regulations governing truck and driver, making this sector of the road freight industry one of the most quality and safety conscious of all modes of transport. 

Sasol is this country's leading manufacturer of hazardous materials and is responsible as a consignor and transporter of DG for the safe delivery of its products. In the event of a DG spill, all manner of threats enter the equation, from loss of human life, to contamination of rivers and ground water, to air pollution, all impacting on the long-term sustainability of the environment.

Chaos and care on a bridge
It is crucial therefore that the DG industry has professional emergency response and disaster management crews at the ready 24/7 to mitigate the effects of DG accidents, as evidenced at a Sasol emergency exercise staged on a bridge crossing the Vaal River in early November 2007.

The mock spill was designed to not only benchmark the overall disaster management capabilities of several emergency services units from Emfuleni and Sasolburg, but also to educate the public about toxic spills, explains John Armstrong, General Manager of Sasol's Chemical Business. "The exercise is based on a simulated crash involving two tankers, one containing imaginary sodium cyanide, motor cars and crash victims. Some 250 emergency response (ER) personnel from ambulance, fire, police, spill response and towing organisations from both the Free State and Gauteng will assist in clearing up the spill safely and efficiently"

With traffic being diverted off the dual-lane highway during the course of the morning, it soon became apparent that while all involved had the skills and the will to carry out their respective tasks, there was a glaring lack of effective communication between the respective ER teams. This was largely due to respective two-way radio frequencies being unsynchronised, resulting in 'zero-comms' between the rescue teams on either side of the river.
 

John Armstrong, General Manager of Sasol’s Chemical business.

Working to improve
Emergency response official, G.T. Mokoena, said at the post-mortem session: "It was a mirror put up in front of us to show the real picture of our abilities and where we need to improve."

While the exercise helped pinpoint weak areas in effectively deploying 'combined operations' to a spill site, there was general consensus that more needs to be done on an ongoing basis to better co-ordinate, skill and equip ER teams around the country to mitigate DG spill risks. 

"If there was real cyanide in that tanker, 14 people would have died on the scene and more would have succumbed to wind-borne cyanide," said SAPS Senior Superintendent Slabbert. 

It was also concluded that more work needs to be done to help understand why DG accidents happen in the first place, especially on public roads, and how best to prevent them.

Sasol and the Responsible Care Initiative do deserve applause for putting the exercise together in the interests of a safer environment for all. FleetWatch says, "well done and keep it up!"

Tankers carrying hazardous substances need to be supported by an extensive disaster management infra - structure in order to prevent extensive and expensive environmental damage.