Page 31 - Port Of Hamburg Magazine 04.2019
P. 31
How well acquainted are logistics companies with the new rules in Major Incident Law?
The new Major Incident Law – Störfallrecht – came into force at the beginning of 2017. In some German states, administrative action that deeply affects operational planning has developed. Peter Duschek, managing partner of UMCO, is struck by the fact that companies affected in the logistics sector, and also some of the responsible authorities, are not always aware of the full impact of the new law.
INNOVATIVE INDUSTRY ■
Whether the new law is applied depends on the presence of substances relevant to an incident when a facility is classified. A facility’s capacity and which volumes of incident-relevant substances it can han- dle, are crucial. The list of relevant substances is in- corporated in a longer list in the Major Incident Ordi- nance. The group of substances harmful to water is one of those significant for the logistics sector. Substances harmful to water cannot unfortunately be regarded as identical with the WGK Water Hazard
Class under German Water Protection Law. Specific classifications of a substance or mixture are impor- tant for the relevance of the major incident category ‘harmful to water’. These can be found in all hazard- ous goods classes, among them acids and alkalis – storage category 8 – or poisonous substances. This means that when considering whether the Major In- cident Law applies, an operator must always investi- gate and evaluate all the hazard statements for planned for storage.
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