Technical Safety BC following up with ammonia facilities

Owners asked to confirm compliance with coolant testing, reporting requirements

Technical Safety BC has been working with the refrigeration industry to help prevent ammonia exposure. 

The self-funded organization, formerly known as BC Safety Authority, has been regularly reaching out to ammonia facilities to raise awareness about the dangers and prevention of accidental ammonia release incidents to focus on incident prevention and the reduction of safety risks. 

Currently, Technical Safety BC is in the process of following up with facilities that have not yet complied with the new coolant testing and reporting requirements. Enforcement actions are one of the tools used when working with industry to reduce safety risks. 

The Safety Standards Act empowers Technical Safety BC to take several enforcement actions if they discover safety issues, regulatory non-compliances or find that any technical systems or equipment might pose a risk to workers or the public.

The organization will be providing non-compliant facilities with an additional 30 days to come into compliance, before facing potential monetary penalties.

As part of this effort, Technical Safety BC issued a safety order on Nov. 29 that outlined requirements for all public occupancy ammonia refrigeration plants to have their brine solution tested for the presence of ammonia. 

Owners of these facilities had until Dec. 31 to comply with the safety order and were required to submit their test results to Technical Safety BC within five days of receiving the results. 

This safety order was issued to promote safety with refrigeration equipment containing ammonia by raising awareness of any potential safety concerns.