Accident Investigations of the United States Chemical Safety Board

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is an independent, scientific investigatory agency, created by the United States Congress in 1990. The mission of the Board is to promote the prevention of major chemical accidents at fixed facilities e.g. chemical plants, oil refineries and other facilities that process chemicals. The principal role of the CSB is to investigate chemical process accidents to determine the conditions and circumstances which led up to the event and to identify the cause or causes so that similar events might be prevented.

The agency is governed by a Board, consisting of a Chairman and four members appointed by the President of the United States. Board members serve fixed terms of five years. It has a professional staff, located in Washington, DC and in Denver, Colorado.

Topics to be discussed include:
• How the Chemical Safety Board decides which incidents to investigate.
• The actual investigation process, including the development of recommendations
• The findings from recent investigations, including chemical plant incidents in Institute, West Virginia and Belle, West Virginia and multiple incidents at a steel powder manufacturing facility in Gallatin, TN.
• The CSB’s investigation of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
• The impact of Chemical Safety Board investigations on chemical process safety management.
• The Chemical Safety Board’s view of future chemical process safety trends
• General lessons learned from the CSB's incident investigations