NFPA Standards Council issues final decision on appeal

Information Management Journal, May/Jun 2003

In a letter dated March 21, the Standards Council of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reported that it had voted to uphold, in part, appeals regarding the proposed 2003 edition of NFPA 232 Standard for the Protection of Records. It also said that the council was returning the 2003 edition to the NFPA Technical Committee (TC) on Record Protection for further processing. The net effect is that the 2000 edition of NFPA 232, with its hotly contested requirement for compartmentation - "the subdivision of a building into relatively small areas so that fire or smoke can be confined to the room or section in which it originates" - remains in effect for now.

The letter was in response to a January 15 hearing in which the council considered appeals to eliminate the fixed limit of 250,000 cubic feet as the maximum storage volume of records in a single compartment. The appeal hearing was scheduled after the TC reached a stalemate about the compartmentation issue. The TC had decided by a majority verbal vote during its fall meeting to keep compartmentation in the standard, but when the vote was sent out for ratification by a letter ballot, as required by NFPA, it was evenly split between opponents and proponents, 12-12.

At the January hearing, a range of technical and procedural concerns was raised by those speaking both for and against the appeals. Much discussion focused on the technical validity of the requirements in the proposed 2003 edition as well as in the previous 2000 edition of NFPA 232. Various claims of procedural defects - from both sides suggested that recent TC meetings were operated in a questionable manner and that the processing at the November 2002 NFPA membership meeting was flawed. Diane Carlisle, CRM, ARMA International's director of professional resources and TC representative, and ARMA President Juanita Skillman, CRM, FAI, represented ARMA at the January hearing.

According to the March 21 letter, the council found an insufficient basis for the charges about the conduct of the meeting or balance of the committee. In addition, the council discovered no procedural violations in the handling of this matter at the association's membership meeting.

Before further processing of the 2003 edition of NFPA 232, the council plans to review the membership and structure of the TC. The council, therefore, is directing all TC members who wish to be considered for continued service to reapply for membership and that membership be opened to other interested parties. Carlisle stated that ARMA will reapply for committee membership.

Others who are interested in applying for membership to the technical committee can access the application form online at www.nfpa.org/codes/technicakommittees.asp or from the NFPA Codes & Standards Administration, 1 Batterymarch Park, PO Box 9101, Quincy, MA 02269-9101.