SilverPlatter Guide

Emergency Response Guide (ERGD)

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An Introduction to the Emergency Response Guide 2004 (ERG2004)

The Emergency Response Guidebook 2004 (ERG2004) was developed jointly by Transport Canada (TC), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation of Mexico (SCT) for use by fire fighters, police, and other emergency services personnel who may be the first to arrive at the scene of a transportation incident involving dangerous goods or hazardous materials.

It is primarily a guide to aid first responders in (1) quickly identifying the specific or generic classification of the material(s) involved in the incident, and (2) protecting themselves and the general public during the initial response phase of the incident, typically at a highway or railroad.  For the purposes of the guidebook, the "initial response phase" is that period following arrival at the scene of an incident during which the presence and/or identification of dangerous goods is confirmed, protective actions and area securement are initiated, and assistance of qualified personnel is requested.  It is not intended to provide information on the physical or chemical properties of dangerous goods.

The Guidebook assists responders in making initial decisions upon arriving at the scene of a dangerous goods incident.  It should not be considered as a substitute for emergency response training, knowledge or sound judgement.  The Guidebook does not address all possible circumstances that may be associated with a dangerous goods incident but please note that it may of limited use in its application at fixed facility locations.

The Guidebook incorporates dangerous goods lists from the most recent United Nations Recommendations as well as from other international and national regulations.  Explosives are not listed individually by either proper shipping name or ID Number.  They do, however, appear in the database.  For more information on what has changed in this version, please click here.

First responders at the scene of a dangerous goods incident should seek additional specific information about any material in question as soon as possible.  The information received by contacting the appropriate emergency response agency, the emergency response number on the shipping document, or by consulting the information on or accompanying the shipping document, may be more specific and accurate than the Guidebook in providing guidance for the materials involved.

In the U.S., according to the requirements of the U.S. Department of Labor’ s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA, 29 CFR 1910.120), and regulations issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 40 CFR Part 311), first responders must be trained regarding the use of the Guidebook.

DOT's goal is to place one ERG2004 in each emergency service vehicle, nationwide, through distribution to state and local public safety authorities.  To date, nearly nine million copies have been distributed without charge to the emergency responder community.  Copies are made available free of charge to public emergency responders through the state coordinator (U.S. only) nearest you.  A list can be found at http://hazmat.dot.gov/erg2004/statecoord.htm.  Copies are also available commercially through the GPO (Government Printing Office) (http://bookstore.gpo.gov/) and other commercial vendors.

In Canada, the ERG2004 will be distributed to Fire Departments and Highway Police Departments through Federal/Provincial/Territorial Dangerous Goods Committee members.  The list of contacts can be found at http://www.tc.gc.ca/canutec/en/guide/guide-2.htm.  Alternatively, contact CANUTEC (Canadian Transport Emergency Centre) at 613-992-4624 or via the internet at canutec@tc.gc.ca for information.

In Mexico, call SCT at 52-5-684-1275.

Some of the material in this Croner on-screen guide has been extracted from the websites cited above.  This is dutifully and gratefully acknowledged.

It is important to note that the although the Croner database version of the Guidebook reproduces it in as much as it can, it can in no way substitute the Guidebook in its printed format.

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What is the Croner ERG2004 Database ?

The Croner ERG2004 database is a fully integrated full-text database containing ALL 3407 materials listed in the Guidebook.  It also includes, in each material record, the appropriate safety recommendations and emergency response information guide pages and the isolation/protective distances table (if appropriate).  It also readily yields information as to whether the material is water reactive and if so which gases are given off on contact with water as well as whether the material polymerizes (violently) on heating or contamination.

For a full list of fields, please click here.

N.B.  Although this database cannot reproduce the Guidebook as it appears in its printed format, it does provide all the material-specific information within it.

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What's new in ERG2004 ?

There have been significant changes made to ERG2004 resulting in the ERG2004 including:-

1).  What is a TIH (toxic inhalation hazard) ?
2).  The tables of initial isolation and protective action distances have been updated.
3).  The Hazard Classification System and Table of Placards have been updated.
4).  Emergency Reponse telephone numbers have been changed.
5).  Deletion of old organic peroxide names.
6).  Deletion of pre-1995 United States NA numbers.
7).  Deletion of all Canadian NA numbers.
8).  Addition of all new dangerous goods listed in the UN Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (12th and 13th revised editions).
9).  Reassignment of certain materials to a different guide.
10).  Some guides have been updated and guide 147 has been deleted (which contained information under the old organic peroxide heading - see 5). above).
11).  The list of water-reactive materials has been updated.

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About TC, the DOT and the SCT

The 2004 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG2004) was prepared by the staff of Transport Canada (TC), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) of Mexico with the assistance of many interested parties from government and industry.

ERG2004 is based on earlier Transport Canada, U.S. DOT, and Secretariat of Communications and Transport emergency response guidebooks.  The Emergency Response Guidebook has been translated and printed in many languages, including French, Spanish, Chinese, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, and Thai.

Constructive comments concerning ERG2004 are solicited; in particular, comments concerning its use in handling incidents involving dangerous goods. Comments should be addressed to:

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Emergency Telephone Numbers

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Navigating the Croner ERG2004 Database

There are three main ways in which you can navigate around the Croner ERG2004 database.
These are:-

1. Using the Database Table of Contents and the Document Table of Contents;

2. Using the Search function;

3. Using the Index function.

See the general Help Index for information about how to use these functions and the Search Examples topic for guidance specific to this ERG2004 database.

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Database Table of Contents

The Database Table of Contents for the Croner ERG2004 Database is currently arranged in two levels and the database is presented in ascending order of ID or UN number.  The higher of these two levels contains a small number of entries which look like:-

CHEMICALS with NO ID NUMBERS, arranged alphabetically
ID NUMBERS 1001 - 1999
ID NUMBERS 2000 - 2999
ID NUMBERS 3000 - 9300

This is what you see when you press the "Contents" button in the button bar near the top of the WinSPIRS screen (similar remarks apply to WebSPIRS).  It should be noted that not all materials in ERG2004 have ID Numbers, and in cases such as this the field entry has been replaced by a "----" instead of a number (e.g. explosives are not listed individually by either proper shipping name or ID Number.  They do, however, appear in the database).

Each of these entries then further subdivides (by clicking on it) to reveal groups of ID Numbers, also presented in ascending order.  Clicking on the second entry (ID NUMBERS 1001 - 1999) would reveal the following entries:

You then have the option of seeing individual records by clicking on any of the entries above.  For example if you clicked on (ID Numbers 1500 - 1999) it would reveal the following entries:

Further expansion of a product name will reveal the Document Table of Contents.

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Document Table of Contents

The Table of Contents for each document or record is created from the brief record and full text field (FT) once an ID Number has been expanded at the database level.

For example you would see something like:-

UN NO. 1018, Chlorodifluoromethane; Refrigerant gas R-22
       Brief Record
       ERG2004 GUIDE 126 - Gases - Compressed or Liquefied (Including Refrigerant Gases)

For every record in the database, there are at least 2 primary sections (Brief Record and Guide Page information).  The ERG2004 GUIDE primary section always further subdivides into at least 3 secondary sections which are:

POTENTIAL HAZARDS
PUBLIC SAFETY
EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Guide 114 includes an additional primary section entitled SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION.

The 3 main secondary sections further subdivide conferring the full-text structure of this data.  Please note that the first tertiary section for PUBLIC SAFETY is entitled [PRECAUTIONS].  This does NOT appear in the printed guide pages but is inserted as a section heading is required by the SPIRS software at this point.  The square brackets denote that this is an insertion.  Sometimes, the "Untitled Section" tertiary heading appears where the SPIRS software is expecting a section heading but which does not appear in the data.  This usually appears as the first section heading under the SPILL OR LEAK section heading which is below the EMERGENCY RESPONSE secondary heading.

If at least one of the materials in the record  is deemed to be a TIH (toxic inhlation hazard), the Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances will appear as the 3rd primary section in the record, directly after Guide Page information.

See the full text field for a description of this data.

Breaking the full-text apart like this means that you can display, mark, print and download only those parts of the record that you are interested in (see the general Help Index for more information on marking, printing and downloading of (parts of) records).

For those substances which are toxic or poisonous by inhalation, additional data (following the Guide Page information) is provided in the form of a Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances.

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Guide Pages in ERG2004

This full text data that appears in every record is essentially the most important section of the database because this is where all safety recommendations are provided.  It comprises a total of 62 individual Guides each providing safety recommendations and emergency response information to protect first responders and the public.  Each Guide is designed to cover a group of substances which possess similar chemical and toxicological characteristics.

Page numbers range from 111 to 172.  The data is fully searchable - see the full text field for some examples.

For more information please consult http://www.tc.gc.ca/canutec/erg_gmu/en/Table_of_contents.htm or http://hazmat.dot.gov/erg2004/erg2004.pdf.

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The Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances

Initial isolation and protective action distances in this database (and in the Guidebook) were determined for small and large spills occurring during day or night.  The overall analysis was statistical in nature and utilized state-of-the-art emission rate and dispersion models; statistical release data from the U.S. DOT HMIS (Hazardous Materials Incident Reporting System) database; 5 years of meteorological observations from over 120 locations in United States, Canada and Mexico; and the most current toxicological exposure guidelines.

For each chemical, thousands of hypothetical releases were modelled to account for the statistical variation in both release amount and atmospheric conditions.  Based on this statistical sample, the 90% percentile Protective Action Distance for each chemical and category was selected to appear in the Table.  A brief description of the analysis is provided below.  A detailed report outlining the methodology and data used in the generation of the Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances may be obtained from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration.

Release amounts and emission rates into the atmosphere were statistically modelled based on (1) data from the U.S. DOT HMIS database; (2) container types and sizes authorized for transport as specified in 49 CFR 172.101 and Part 173; (3) physical properties of the materials involved, and (4) atmospheric data from a historical database.  The emission model calculated the release of vapor due to evaporation of pools on the ground, direct release of vapors from the container, or a combination of both, as would occur for liquefied gases which can flash to form both a vapor/aerosol mixture and an evaporating pool.  In addition, the emission model also calculated the emission of toxic vapor by-products generated from spilling water-reactive chemicals in water.  Spills that involve releases of approximately 200 liters or less are considered Small Spills, while spills that involve quantities greater than 200 liters are considered Large Spills.

Downwind dispersion of the vapor was estimated for each case modelled.  Atmospheric parameters affecting the dispersion, and the emission rate, were selected in a statistical fashion from a database containing hourly meteorological data from 120 cities in United States, Canada and Mexico.  The dispersion calculation accounted for the time dependent emission rate from the source as well as the density of the vapor plume (i.e., heavy gas effects).  Since atmospheric mixing is less effective at dispersing vapor plumes during night-time, day and night were separated in the analysis.  In the Table, "Day" refers to time periods after sunrise and before sunset, while "Night" includes all hours between sunset and sunrise.

Toxicological short-term exposure guidelines for the chemicals were applied to determine the downwind distance to which persons may become incapacitated and unable to take protective action or may incur serious health effects.  Toxicological exposure guidelines were chosen from (1) emergency response guidelines, (2) occupational health guidelines, or (3) lethal concentrations determined from animal studies, as recommended by an independent panel of toxicological experts from industry and academia.

Thus, the Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances suggests distances useful to protect people from vapors resulting from spills involving dangerous goods which are considered toxic by inhalation (TIH), including certain chemical warfare agents, or which produce toxic gases upon contact with water.  The Table provides first responders with initial guidance until technically qualified emergency response personnel are available.  Distances show areas likely to be affected during the first 30 minutes after materials are spilled and could increase with time.

The Initial Isolation Zone defines an area SURROUNDING the incident in which persons may be exposed to dangerous (upwind) and life threatening (downwind) concentrations of material.  The Protective Action Zone defines an area DOWNWIND from the incident in which persons may become incapacitated and unable to take protective action and/or incur serious or irreversible health effects.  The Table provides specific guidance for small and large spills occurring day or night.

Adjusting distances for a specific incident involves many interdependent variables and should be made only by personnel technically qualified to make such adjustments.  For this reason, no precise guidance can be provided in this document to aid in adjusting the table distances; however, general guidance follows.

The Guide for a material clearly indicates the evacuation distance required to protect against fragmentation hazard.  If the material becomes involved in a FIRE, the toxic hazard may become less important than the fire or explosion hazard.

If more than one tank car, cargo tank, portable tank, or large cylinder involved in the incident is leaking, LARGE SPILL distances may need to be increased.

For material with a protective action distance of 11.0+ km (7.0+ miles), the actual distance can be larger in certain atmospheric conditions.  If the dangerous goods vapor plume is channeled in a valley or between many tall buildings, distances may be larger than shown in the Table due to less mixing of the plume with the atmosphere.  Daytime spills in regions with known strong inversions or snow cover, or occurring near sunset, accompanied by a steady wind, may require an increase in the protective action distance.  When these conditions are present, airborne contaminants mix and disperse more slowly and may travel much farther downwind.  In addition, protective action distances may be larger for liquid spills when either the material or outdoor temperature exceeds 30°C (86°F).

Materials which react with water to produce large amounts of toxic gases are included in the Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances.  Note that some water-reactive materials which are also TIH (e.g., bromine trifluoride (1746), thionyl chloride (1836), etc.) produce additional TIH materials when spilled in water.  For these materials, two entries are provided in the Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances.  If it is not clear whether the spill is on land or in water, or in cases where the spill occurs both on land and in water, choose the larger Protective Action Distance.

When a water reactive TIH producing material is spilled into a river or stream, the source of the toxic gas may move with the current or stretch from the spill point downstream for a substantial distance.

Certain chemical warfare agents have been added to the Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances.  The distances shown were calculated using worst case scenarios for these agents "when used as a weapon".

What is a TIH ?

It is a gas or volatile liquid which is known to be so toxic to humans as to pose a hazard to health during transportation, or in the absence of adequate data on human toxicity, is presumed to be toxic to humans because when tested on laboratory animals it has an LC50 value of not more than 5000 ppm.

It is important to note that even though the term zone is used, the hazard zones do not represent any actual area or distance.  The assignment of the zones is strictly a function of their Lethal Concentration 50 (LC50, the dose required to kill 50% of a test population); for example, TIH Zone A is more toxic than Zone D.  All distances which are listed in The Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances are calculated by the use of mathematical models for each TIH material.

For more information please consult http://www.tc.gc.ca/canutec/erg_gmu/en/Table_of_contents.htm or http://hazmat.dot.gov/erg2004/erg2004.pdf.

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Fields in the ERG2004 Database (ERGD)

Highlighted fields are limit fields.  Asterisked (*) fields are also indexed in the free text index.

The Citation (CITN), a brief record, consists of the UN, PN and GP fields.

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Limit Fields

The limit fields listed below are specially indexed fields that usually have relatively few possible values.  They allow you to limit your searches to records of a particular characteristic.

POLY - Polymerizes on Heating/Contamination ?
WATR - Water-Reactive ?
GAS - Gases given off on Contact with Water *
IPT - Appears in Isolation/Protective Distance Table ?
CB - Chemical/Biological Agent ?

* The contents of this field are also present in the free text index.

You can search these fields with in or =.  For example, to retrieve materials which are water reactive in ERG2004, type:

y in watr or watr=y

To limit the current search to those materials which give off phosphine on contact with water type:

and gas=ph3.

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Search Examples

The search examples given below are by no means exhaustive but illustrate the sorts of searches that you may find useful.  It is important to note that, although all examples are given in lowercase, SPIRS is not case-sensitive; whether your search terms are entered in upper- or lower-case, the same records will be retrieved.

Example 1:  Which materials in ERG2004 are classed as TIH (toxic inhalation hazards) and also polymerize on heating 
and/or contamination ?

Answer 1: search for: ipt=y and poly=y


Notes:
The two limit fields (Appears in Isolation/Protective Distance Table ? field and Polymerizes on Heating/Contamination? 
field) indicating the behaviours indicated in the question are combined with the 'and' operator.  This search reveals 
nine records in ERG2004.

Example 2:  Which materials in ERG2004 give off phosphine on contact with water ?

Answer 2: search for: ph3 in gas

Notes:
This search reveals ten records in ERG2004.  You could also have keyed ph* in gas as the names of the gases are also 
stored in this field.  Note that you could also have keyed phosphine in gas but using truncation reduces the number 
of keystrokes required.

Example 3:  What potential weapons exist in ERG2004 ?

Answer 3: search for: y in cb

Notes:
This simple search lists all chemical and biological agents.  The simple free-text search weapon also reveals yields 
the same record set with hits in The Table of Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances.  Thirty seven such 
materials exist in ERG2004.

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Stopwords

In general, some words appear too frequently in databases to be useful for searching; these are known as stopwords.  You cannot search on these words alone but you can include them in a phrase (which you may need to enclose in quotation marks if the word is also a SPIRS search operator which applies to the words "in", "and", "near", "not", "or", and "with").

The stopwords in ERG2004 are:-

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Copyright Statement

*Emergency Response Guide 2004 (ERG2004) Database
Transport Canada
Secretariat of Communications and Transportation of Mexico
U.S. Department of Transportation

The Emergency Response Guidebook 2004 (ERG2004) was developed jointly by Transport Canada (TC), the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation of Mexico (SCT) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for the use by fire fighters, police, and other emergency services personnel who may be the first to arrive at the scene of a transportation incident involving dangerous goods or hazardous materials.  It is primarily a guide to aid first responders in (1) quickly identifying the specific or generic classification hazards of the material(s) involved in the incident, and (2) protecting themselves and the general public during the initial response phase of the incident.  For the purposes of the Guidebook, the "initial response phase" is that period following arrival at the scene of an incident during which the presence and/or identification of dangerous goods is confirmed, protective actions and area securement are initiated, and assistance of qualified personnel is requested.  It is not intended to provide information on the physical or chemical properties of dangerous goods.

This Croner ERG2004 Database is a unique combination of the Guidebook pages which includes a). the safety recommendations and emergency response information guide pages, b). the isolation/protective distances tables and c). information on water-reactive materials in a single, fully searchable and integrated database based on the ID or UN (United Nations) number.

Although this Database cannot reproduce the Guidebook as it appears in its printed format, it does provide all the information from the sources quoted in the previous sentence.

PLEASE REFER TO THE ON-SCREEN HELP TO SEE HOW TO SEARCH ERG2004 AND FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ON RETRIEVAL.

Copyright, ERG2004 Database, 2004 to present TC, SCT and DOT.  All rights reserved.
Copyrights of SilverPlatter International, N.V.:  Search and Retrieval Software, guidefiles, indexes and supporting files 1990 to present.

The SilverPlatter quarter arc logo, SilverPlatter and ERL are trademarks of SilverPlatter International N.V. registered in one or more countries.  The ERL-compliant logo, SPIRS, MacSPIRS, WinSPIRS, WebSPIRS and UNIXSPIRS are trademarks of SilverPlatter International N.V.

Croner and TC/SCT/DOT use their best efforts to ensure that the Database contains an accurate representation or interpretation of the original material from which the Database was drawn, but neither Croner nor TC/SCT/DOT shall be held responsible for any damage, claim or expense incurred by a subscriber or user as a result of its use or reliance upon the Database.

NEITHER CRONER NOR TC/SCT/DOT MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES AS TO MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IN CONNECTION WITH THE DATABASE, THE SEARCH AND RETRIEVAL SOFTWARE, THE GUIDE FILES, INDEXES OR SUPPORTING FILES, EXCEPT AS EXPLICITLY SET FORTH IN THE LICENSE AGREEMENT.  BOTH CRONER AND TC/SCT/DOT SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM SUCH WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS.  NEITHER CRONER NOR TC/SCT/DOT WILL BE LIABLE FOR SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR INDIRECT DAMAGES, OR FOR "LOST PROFITS", EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.

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Guide Revised October 26, 2005

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