Black Liquor Advisory Committee Activities Report, 1997 Engineering Conference Proceedings

The Black Liquor Advisory Committee (BLRBAC) continues in its efforts to provide a forum where the parties, namely the boiler owners, the manufacturers, the insurers and the organization and service companies that support our industry have an opportunity to meet, exchange experiences, and identity activities that can improve safety and develop guidelines that will reduce the potential of recovery boiler explosions. The organization that was originally founded in 1962, functioned quite well with a set of undocumented bylaws. In 1992, the executive committee felt that it was necessary for a formal set of bylaws to be established in order to assure that the organization retain its tax exempt status. New bylaws were developed and have been in place for two years. These bylaws provide guidance on how we conduct business and deal with issues effecting the organization.

The heart of the organization is the subcommittee activity that deals with specific areas of the recovery boiler operations.

The most active committees are:

• Emergency Shutdown Procedure (ESP) Committee that receives information from member companies covering the details of incidents and evaluates the details to clarity them as critical/non critical, or as explosions.
• Auxiliary Fuels Subcommittee reviews the document and keeps it current with accepted technology. The committee completed a review and reissued it this past spring.
• Personnel Safety completes the rewrites and issues the documents for both the personnel safety guidelines and the training programs for recovery boilers, and associated systems.
• Safe Firing of Black Liquor Committee issued a general rewrite in October of 1994, and is currently revising documents to agree with the auxiliary fuels document.
• Waste Stream Subcommittee has been reactivated to consider current issues around the combustion of waste streams in the recovery boiler. The current BLRBAC position is stated in an advisory document not recommending the practice but, if it is done, it identifies precautions that should be observed.

Copies of all BLRBAC documents are available at no cost by contacting Tim McGee with Hartford Steam Boiler in Atlanta at 770-396-4820.

Tom Grace has been Secretary of the ESP Subcommittee for years and, through AF&PA, visited locations that have experienced explosions. The information has been collected in a database that has been sorted into categories as to types of explosions, auxiliary fuels, pressure part failures, liquor system, pyrolynes gas, etc. This information has been shared with AF&PA. Tom Grace has retired and David Clay is now Secretary of the ESP Committee. He will continue to function as the representative that visits explosion sites.

BLRBAC continues to actively participate with AF&PA recovery boiler subcommittee and to sponsor seminars covering appropriate issues. The last seminar focused on the corrosion issues around the lower furnace. Our next scheduled meetings will be on October 13, 14 and 15. -This title consists of this page only-