Articles Tagged with ''chemical industry''

The EPA this week proposed a fees rule under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that it says will give the agency the resources it needs to review chemicals for safety. Under the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, the proposed fees on certain chemical manufacturers, including importers and processors, would provide what the agency calls “a sustainable source of funding” for implementing the amended law.

A chemical release that sent 140 people to the hospital was caused by a truck driver who mistakenly connected the hose for one chemical to the line for another. The Oct. 21, 2016 incident in Atchison, Kansas also provides valuable lessons in chemical safety, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which used it as the basis of a case study titled “Key Lessons for Preventing Inadvertent Mixing during Chemical Unloading Operations.”

In the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey in August, the water rose so rapidly at the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas site that the first combustion occurred less than 72 hours after flooding commenced. The backup generators at Arkema were elevated 2 feet off the ground, but the flooding exceeded 3 feet in the vicinity of the generators. In short, says the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), the facility was not prepared for such heavy rainfall and such a rapid flood rate. When the floodwaters knocked out power to the plant’s refrigerators, leaving the organic peroxides and volatile chemicals stores at the plant at risk of heating up, Arkema employees moved the peroxides to refrigerated trailers. But the waters kept rising, forcing the evacuation of the workers and ultimately flooding the trailers.

The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) may be preparing to take a significant step backwards in its advocacy for worker participation in preventing chemical facility incidents, including catastrophes like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In April, 2016 the CSB unanimously approved a 4-volume “Macondo Investigation Report” in response to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon blowout that killed 11 workers, injured 17 and spilled 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The report contained a number of recommendations, including four recommendations calling for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) to significantly enhance its regulations requiring worker participation in the employer’s safety program, and enhanced whistleblower protections for workers participating in safety activities.

Dan Zak of the Washington Post has written a long feature article on the impact and aftermath of the West fertilizer explosion that killed 15 people, injured 252 and damaged or destroyed 500 buildings in the small town of West Texas on April 17, 2013.

The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSH) is investigating last week’s explosion at an Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, Tennessee that released potentially toxic chemicals into the air.

Explosions and fumes emanating from a flood-crippled chemical plant in southeast Texas sent a deputy sheriff to the hospital and caused local officials to brace for a fire and more blasts at the facility. News sources report that the flooding caused by Harvey knocked out power to the plant, disabling its refrigeration system and allowing the volatile chemicals it stored to heat up and explode.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) today issued a Safety Alert urging oil and chemical facilities to take special precautions when restarting in the wake of shutdowns due to Hurricane Harvey.