The Seveso II (COMAH)
Directive

General
 
The European Union issued on 24 june 1982 the historical Council Directive 82/501/EEC concerning the major-accident hazards of certain industrial activities; the original Seveso Directive.
 
The name Seveso refers to a village in northern Italy where considerable amounts of tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin (TCDD) were released from a reactor during an industrial accident in an installation producing herbicides and pesticides.
The incident did not result in direct casualties, but was severe enough to inspire the European legislator to develop a Directive aimed at prevention and containment of industrial accidents.
 
Accidents after 1982, when the initial Directive was prepared and voted, lead to amendments in 1987 and 1988 mainly to broaden the scope of the Directive and to include storage activities.
 
The original document was completely revised and became Council Directive 96/82/EC concerning the Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH), most commonly known as the Seveso II-Directive.
 
European member states had a period of two years to ammend existing national legislation or to issue new national legislation to comply with the new Directive.
 
Directive 96/82/EC has been transformed into national law in every member state and has been supplemented with administrative guidelines for industry and complementary inspection procedures.
 
Whether or not a company is subject to mandatory compliance with the COMAH Directive depends solely on the presence of certain chemical agents in or above threshold quantities, on its terrains, either as part of the production process, or in storage.
 
The COMAH Directive has for each listed chemical substance two threshold levels.
Companies that hold quantities below the lower threshold are only subject to national legislation (e.g. occupational safety and health regulations).
Companies that have an inventory in excess of the lower threshold, but below the upper threshold have to implement a part of the Directive.
Other companies with the total of production and/or storage exceeding the upper threshold are forced to comply with all aspects of the COMAH Directive.

General Structure of Directive 96/82/EC
 
Article   1 - Aim
Article   2 - Scope
Article   3 - Definitions
Article   4 - Exclusions
Article   5 - General oblications of the operator
Article   6 - Notification
Article   7 - Major-accident prevention policy
Article   8 - Domino effect
Article   9 - Safety Report
Article 10 - Modification of an installation, an establishment or a storage facility
Article 11 - Emergency plans
Article 12 - Land-use planning
Article 13 - Information on safety measures
Article 14 - Information to be supplied by the operator following a major accident
Article 15 - Information to be supplied by the Member States to the Commission
Article 16 - Competent authority
Article 17 - Prohibition of use
Article 18 - Inspections
Article 19 - Information system and exchanges
Article 20 - Confidentiality
Article 21 - Terms of reference of the Committee
Article 22 - Committee
Article 23 - Repeal of Directive 82/501/EEC
Article 24 - Implementation
Article 25 - Entry into force
Article 26 - Administrative closing remarks
 
Annex I - Application of the Directive
Annex II - Minimum data and information to be considered in the safety report specified in Article 9
Annex III - Principles referred to in Article 7 and information reffered to in Article 9 on the management system and the organization of the establishment with a view to the prevention of major accidents
Annex IV - Data and information to be included in the emergency plans specified under Article 11
Annex V - Items of information to be communicated to the public as provided for in Article 13
Annex VI - Criteria for the notification of an accident to the Commission as provided for in Article 15

Directive 96/82/EC and Emergency Management
 
The COMAH Directive specifies - however, in very broad terms - the basic requirements for and components of, internal and external emergency plans.
 
Referring to Annex IV, the minimum content criteria for internal emergency plans are:

• A command and control function within the company to perform notification, alerting and incident response;
  
• A liaison function to co-ordinate the emergency response with the responsible for the external emergency plans;
  
• Procedural checklists that cover all the (most) likely incidents (cf. Safety Report) and describe actions to contain the incidents and to limit the damages, and the available assets commitable for incident response;
  
• A description of precautionary measures, including the warning system, aimed at preventing casualties on-site during an incident.
  
• A structure for early notification and alerting of external emergency services and agencies responsible for the external emergeny plans;
  
• A training programme for emergency responders to enable them to a. perform their function and b. co-operate with off-site emergency services;
  
• Arrangements to provide assistance with off-site mitigation activities.
  

 
National authorities of the Member States have converted this performance oriented shortlist into more extensive checklists and/or evaluation procedures and manuals.
 
CEMAC uses these procedures and checklists as bottom-level benchmarks when evaluating corporate (internal) emergency plans.
 
CEMAC's EMCAP system (cf. Research & Development pages) combines both the U.S. Capability Assessment for Readiness and NFPA 1600, and the European COMAH criteria to assess overall readiness and capability to respond to emergencies and disasters.

Directive 96/82/EC in Perspective
 
The COMAH Directive is not a static end product.
The European Union has various consulting bodies that work on new ammendments and modifications to the existing Directive.
Incidents such as the fire at an explosives factory in Enschede (Holland) have triggered initiatives to expand the scope of the Directive;
 
In addition, European environmental initiatives (and Directives) such as IPPC, EIA or EMAS mention explicitely the COMAH Directive as structural guideline for the development of emergency plans, including measures for environmental damage control and containment.
 
The COMAH Directive and its more practical derivatives appear to become the basic conceptual standard for emergency management in Europe.
 
The 96/82/EC Directive has also been proposed as Europe's 'legal and technical instrument' to fulfil the requirements of the United Nations / ECE Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents (entered into force on 19-apr-2000).
Implementation of this Convention is a mixed competence (involving the European Union as legislative body and the individual Member States) and is currently underway in the various EU countries.
 
 
text: Luc E.T. Rombout

Addtional Information
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