Last Friday, June 8, 2007, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted two new documents to their Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT) web site. Both of these PDF documents dealt with the Top Screen Tool module of the CSAT which became active on the same day. The DHS Top Screen Questions document shows the actual questions that people completing the Top Screen will be required to answer on the secure web site. The 88 page document shows how extensive these questions are that DHS will use to help determine if the site submitting the information is a high-risk facility under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS). The DHS Top Screen Users Manual is the second document, and it provides guidance for answering the questions on the Top Screen.

It was expected that DHS would publish a revised Appendix A to the CFATS in the Federal Register on Friday but that did not happen, nor was it in the Monday or Tuesday Federal Register. The propane industry and many laboratories were hoping that there would be substantial changes to the Screening Threshold Quantities (STQ) for various chemicals on the DHS Chemicals of Concern List. The propane industry objected to the 17,500 lb STQ for propane, claiming that it would require many home and business users of propane to complete the Top Screen. Many university and medical laboratories filed complaints that the Any Amount STQ for chemicals that were common in labs in small quantities would also require these labs to complete the Top Screen. Concerns from both of these areas were expected to be at least partially addressed by the final version of Appendix A.

Looking at the Top Screen Questions document it does not appear that DHS intends to change any of the STQs. Each of the chemicals listed in the proposed Appendix A are shown in the Questions document with the same STQ that is shown in the proposed appendix. Since this Questions document is not listed as a draft or proposed document it would seem that DHS is going to keep the proposed STQ.

For propane customers the hardest part of completing the Top Screen will be to fill out the administrative information and completing the registration process before being able to fill out the Top Screen. Some of the administrative details will be confusing to people that are not used to filling out government forms more complicated than their yearly tax forms (that more and more people are having others fill out for them). The part that will cause the most problems will probably be the requirement to provide the latitude and longitude of the 'chemical facility'.

To make things easier, the propane industry may want to complete the Top Screen for their customers since they are, in most cases, the owners of the storage tank. It is not clear, however, that this is allowable under the DHS regulations. If these tanks are declared not to be high-risk facilities by DHS, there should be no problem. If they are declared to be high-risk facilities the requirements to complete Security Vulnerability Assessments (SVA) and potentially Site Security Plans for the residential tanks in particular will be difficult for homeowners to complete.

The issues surrounding the laboratory requirements to complete Top Screens for 'Any Amount' of various chemicals is less clear, if that is possible. The Questions document does not actually list 'Any Amount' in the STQ column for any chemical, but it does not list any weight for chemicals that were listed in the proposed Appendix A with an STQ of 'Any Amount'. Presumably that means the same thing as 'Any Amount'. There are no clarifying instructions in the Users Manual document.

Universities and research institutions with several labs and chemical supply rooms will be able to report the aggregate total of these chemicals, so only one Top Screen will be required. Fortunately, these labs will not have to report actual quantities, they will just have to report that they have the chemical on hand and that it is stored in 'Man Portable' containers (which includes 55 gal drums and standard gas cylinders) or bulk storage tanks (not likely to be found in lab settings). It is not clear how DHS intends to determine what facilities will be declared high-risk based on this limited data.

It will be interesting to see what the final version of Appendix A will look like. If the changes have been made that the propane industry and labs had requested, DHS will have to change the two documents that it just published. That will create no end of confusion.