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.

An unmanned, half-mile long train “bomb train” carrying tank-cars full of highly explosive crude oil barrels toward a city where it is doomed to derail on a curve, killing everyone in its wake. Luckily, Denzel Washington and Chris Pine show up to save the city at the last second. Everyone lives happily every after.