# Airgas, Inc. — Hazardous Materials Safety Interpretation **Citation:** 05-0091 **Type / status:** guidance / guidance **Agency:** Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration **Effective:** Not stated **Published:** 2005-05-03 05-0091 response to Airgas, Inc. concerning 172.604. ## Document text <<>> J.S. Department of Transportation Washington, D.C. 20590 400 Seventh Street, S.W. Pipeline and MAY 3 2005 Administration Hazardous Materials Safety Mr. John Anderson Reference No.: 05-0091 Direc:or of DOT Operations P.O. Box 20067 Airgas, Inc. Cheyenne, WY 20067 This responds to your letter regarding the emergency response telephone number requirements under the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR; 49 CFR parts 171-180). You ask whether a telephone number that provides the caller an automated option for forwarding the call to CHEMTREC or a similar emergency response service is accep:able. The answer is yes. As required by § 172.604, the emergency response telephone number must be monitored at all time the hazardous material is in transportation by a person who is either knowledgeable of the characteristics of the hazardous material and has comprehensive emergency response information, or has immediate access to a person who possesses such knowledge. It is the opinion of this Office that a telephone number with a one-stroke patch-through capability to CHEMTREC or a similar emergency response service satisfies the requirement of "immediate access to a person with detailed emergency response information." I trust this satisfies your request. Sincerely, Hille eithell Hattie L. Mitchell Chief, Regulatory Review and Reinvention Office of Hazardous Materials Standards $172.604 050091 <<>> Airgas John Anderson Corbin Airgas, Inc. Director of DOT Operations PO Box 20067 $172.604 Cheyenne, WY 82003 http://www.airgas.com (307) 778-8809 Fax: (307) 778-7497 mergency kesponse john.anderson@airgas.com April 8, 20C5 Number Hattie Mitchell 05-0091 Regulatory Review - DHM-12 400 Seventh St. SW Washington, DC 20590 Dear Ms Mitchell: Per our phone conversation on 4/8/2005, I would like to follow-up with a request for a written interpretation. You have verbally stated the following practice is acceptable, but we would like a written response for our files. Airgas would like to implement an emergency response telephone number that would work as follows. The telephone number would be displayed on our hazardous material shipping paper as our Emergency Contact (per 49 CFR 172.604). It would state to call this number "In the event of Spill, Leak or Emergency During Transportation". When a call is placed to this phone number, an automatic attendant (non-human) would answer with the following options. Option 1 - "If this is a spill, leak or emergency during transportation press 1". The caller would then be automatically connected to CHEMTREC or a CHEMTREC-type emergency response service. Option 2 - "If this is a non-emergency but you would like to speak to the Airgas customer service department for product outage, trouble shooting, etc., please press 2." The caller would then be connected to the Airgas answering service that would take down the caller's information and an Airgas employee would return their call. As I explained today during our telephone conversation, Airgas receives over 400 non- emergency after-hour calls per year. These calls are often placed through a phone number set aside/noted as an emergency response telephone number. The above solution is our attempt to meet the requirements of 49 CFR 172.604 and also be able to provide after-hours assistance to our customers who experience a non-emergency. Our experience is that human nature will always result in someone calling a 1-800 for assistance in a non-emergency situation, even if the number is boldly noted as an emergency response telephone number. <<>> - With the Cctober 1, 2005 effective date of HM-206B, Airgas wants to ensure our compliance. We have recently received two citations because of confusion over our CHEMTREC emergency response telephone number and our attempt to handle these non-emergency type calls through an Airgas answering service. Thank you for your prompt response to this request. John Anderson Director of DOT Operations Airgas, Inc. 2 ## Provenance - Official: Yes - Source: - Source ID: `phmsa` - SHA-256: `f694a47916091a747a4ad95c425187f6f328368f664b0381257f6eee770dfe06` - Retrieved: 2026-08-20T00:59:31.977Z - Exported: 2026-08-22T13:56:48.538Z - Document slug: `phmsa-interpretation-05-0091` ### Source metadata ```json { "materialSubtype": "interpretation", "interpretationArea": "hazardous_materials", "representation": "full_text_from_official_pdf", "companies": [ "Airgas, Inc." ], "individuals": [ "Mr. John Anderson" ], "refIds": [ "05-0091" ], "catalogDates": [ "2005-05-03" ], "catalogParts": [ 172 ], "catalogRowCount": 1, "sourceRecordUrls": [ "https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/node/56481" ], "linkedAttachmentUrls": [], "unavailableResponseUrls": [], "duplicateRepresentationUrls": [], "citedSections": [ "172.604" ], "catalogPageUrls": [ "https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/regulations/title49/section/172604" ], "pdfUrls": [ "https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/legacy/interpretations/Interpretation%20Files/2005/050091.pdf" ], "representations": [ { "viewUrl": "https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/legacy/interpretations/Interpretation%20Files/2005/050091.pdf", "detailUrl": null, "detailHtmlPath": null, "pdfUrl": "https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/legacy/interpretations/Interpretation%20Files/2005/050091.pdf", "pdfArtifactPath": "data/sources/phmsa-interpretations/05-0091-763786a6ae.pdf", "pdfArtifactSha256": "f198ff00c7380d97e75db24cc7660fe19b4fb99910a2c8725dae1099670bd961", "extractedTextPath": "data/sources/phmsa-interpretations/05-0091-763786a6ae.v2.txt", "extractedTextSha256": "a5a14fb439c3e31081e9f17b87223eb60094e4bfa0bcb0b6433e8fb5340232d2", "pageCount": 3, "extractionVersion": 2 } ], "caveat": "Interpretations apply regulations to the facts presented and do not create independently enforceable requirements.", "jurisdiction": "US" } ```