Abstract
Chlorine is a toxic chemical that is nonetheless commonly employed for many industrial applications such as disinfection of water in potable water treatment plants. Accidental release of chlorine at such a facility can lead to serious environmental pollution with high adverse health consequence for both personnel and residents close to the facility. Two reported accidental releases of chlorine at water treatment plants were at the Cross River Water Board Plant and the Lamingo Water Treatment Plant which occurred in 2007 and 2015, respectively, and resulted in multiple fatalities and several hospitalizations. This paper, therefore, presents the dispersion modeling of these two cases together with a third one based on hypothetical release scenarios in order to determine the potential consequences of the releases. The modeling was carried out using the Areal Location of Hazardous Atmosphere (ALOHA) software developed and made freely available by the United State Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). The Google Earth mapping software, which is also freely available, was employed to graphically display the results of the dispersion modeling from the ALOHA software so that it is easy to identify the areas that could be impacted by the releases. The results showed three threat zones (red, orange and yellow) for all the hypothetical release cases of the three locations. The results also show that the potential for much higher multiple fatalities and hospitalizations exist for the third location. Thus, every effort must be made by implementing measures to prevent the accidental release of chlorine, as well as adequate/robust emergency response plans for mitigation and recovery in the event of a release. The dispersion modeling results are useful for planning emergency response and evacuation/escape routes. Keywords: Dispersion modeling, Chlorine, Toxicity, ALOHA software, Google Earth, Threat zones, emergency response planning.
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