Every
facility is perfectly safe until something goes bang. That
unfortunate day is a simple function of probability and time. My
real point is that you can truly measure the risk and you can license
containment for starters.
Better
yet you can charge a surcharge on critical chemicals based on its
containment history and include imports to impose our standards
overseas.
Everything
in the Texas blast was safe provided a proper blast berm was in
place. You can not stop accidents, but you can certainly mitigate
their effects rather well. We have been doing this with gun powder
for centuries already.
People
will still die, but that is the nature of an accident. What is not
acceptable is not preparing for the inevitable. Here we have one
more dance with the regulators and a gunslingers attitude to the risk
itself.
Why Can't EPA
Tighten Safety Regulations at Chemical Facilities Like West
Fertilizer?
Thursday, 16 May 2013
15:05By Mike Ludwig,
In July 2012, three
Republican senators and one Democratic senator wrote a letter to
Lisa Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) top
administrator at the time, requesting that the agency reject a
proposal to strengthen safety measures at facilities that hold
dangerous chemicals.
Sen. David Vitter
(R-Louisiana), Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Sen. Mary Landrieu
(D-Louisiana) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) asked the EPA to
reject a 2012 request from a federal advisory committee to revisit
the proposal and "reduce or eliminate ... catastrophic risks"
at facilities that hold large quantities of dangerous chemicals,
especially those near residential areas. The proposal first appeared
at the EPA in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The April 17
fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, that killed 14 people and
nearly obliterated a small town has renewed calls for the EPA to
act on this proposal, which would grant the agency authority under
the Clean Air Act to require facilities to review and use "inherently
safer technologies" to reduce the risk of major accidents and
chemical releases.
Investigators say a
fire at the West Fertilizer facility detonated stores of ammonium
nitrate, causing the deadly explosion. A criminal probe into the
incident was opened last week. Investigators have identified three
possible sources of ignition: a secondary electrical system, a golf
cart that apparently had been subject to a recall, or a criminal
act, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Under the original EPA
proposal, unveiled by top agency officials to address terrorism
concerns following 9/11 but never adopted, chemical plants would be
made less vulnerable to accidents and terrorist attacks by "reducing
quantities of hazardous chemicals handled or stored, substituting
less hazardous chemical for extremely hazardous ones, or otherwise
modifying the design of processes to reduce or eliminate chemical
hazards."
In their 2012 letter
to Jackson, the four senators said the proposal would result in legal
challenges from the chemical industry and complicate the current
regulatory structure for chemical facility safety, which mainly falls
under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jurisdiction.
A 2006 law gave DHS
the authority to issue safety and anti-terrorism standards for
chemical facilities, but environmental and labor groups point
out that the law is rife with exemptions and loopholes and
specifically bars the DHS from requiring that facilities use less
poisonous chemicals.
The West Fertilizer
facility has held 1,350 times the amount of explosive ammonium
nitrate that would trigger oversight from the DHS, but DHS did not
know about the stockpile until it blew up because the company failed
to notify regulators, according to reports. In addition, the
facility's risk management plan did not include "fire" as a
potential risk.
In 2006, the EPA fined
West Fertilizer $2,300 after finding deficiencies in the West, Texas,
plant's risk management plan and directed the company to make
corrections. EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson told Truthout in an email
that, "EPA is committed to continuing to work...to pursue
opportunities to increase the safety of chemical plants," but
Johnson did not say whether the agency is considering the proposal to
require "inherently safer technology" at chemical plants
under the Clean Air Act.
In 2009, both the DHS
and EPA asked Congress for expanded authority to require that
facilities use safer chemicals and practices where feasible and lift
exemptions for thousands of water treatment plants and port
facilities. A bill was introduced in the House as a result, but
environmental and labor groups claim the petrochemical lobby
successfully worked to block it.
Opposition to Chemical
Plant Regulation
According to the
National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, a federal advisory
committee to the EPA, the agency can require facilities to use safer
chemicals and technology under the "general duty clause" of
the Clean Air Act. The US Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of
industry groups recently applauded four House members - Rep.
Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Billy Long
(R-Missouri), and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) - for introducing legislation
that would limit EPA authority under the clause and keep chemical
facility safety under DHS jurisdiction.
The bill flies in the
face of a coalition of environmental groups and labor unions,
including the United Steelworkers of America and the AFL-CIO, which
has petitioned the Obama administration to give the EPA authority to
strengthen safety measures at chemical facilities.
"These Republican
robots talk about job-killing regulations, but what about
people-killing policies and company-killing events?" said Rick
Hind, legislative director at Greenpeace, a member of the coalition.
"If these disasters are preventable, why not prevent them? If
there is a risk of a fire, why not install a smoke detector?"
Senator Vitter, a
vocal critic of the EPA and key signatory on the 2012 letter opposing
the proposal, received nearly $600,000 in direct campaign
contributions from the petrochemical and gas industries from 2007 to
2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
A spokesman at
Vitter's Washington, DC office did not respond to a request for
comment from Truthout.
During the past 15
years, Vitter and Senator Landrieu's home state of Louisiana had
the nation's highest rate of accidents at chemical facilities that
hold large amounts of anhydrous ammonia, a poisonous
gas, according to data compiled by the Center for Effective
Government.
The West, Texas,
facility held a large stock of anhydrous ammonia, but it appears that
it was not released in the explosion, which may have caused more
causalities, according to Hind.
"A 10-Year
Battle"
Christine Todd
Whitman, former New Jersey governor and EPA administrator under the
Bush administration, pushed for the original "inherently safer
technology" proposal in the wake of 9/11 to prevent thousands of
chemical facilities across the country from being turned into weapons
of mass destruction. The Bush administration scuttled the effort and
instead made plans to push legislation through Congress, but a bill
to give the EPA such authority never materialized as the White House
caved to the wishes of the chemical industry, according to
reports.
In a 2012 editorial
in The New York Times, Whitman explained why, after "a 10-year
battle," she still supports giving the EPA the authority to
require "inherently safer technology" at chemical
facilities:
The current chemical
security statute is inadequate to the task. The policy bars the
Department of Homeland Security from requiring some specific security
measures, like the use of safer chemical processes, and exempts
thousands of dangerous chemical facilities, including all water
treatment plants and refineries located on navigable waters, from
complying with even the weakest security measures.
Hind told Truthout the
EPA could move on the proposal with an executive order, but he doubts
either the agency or the White House will make such a move
whilewrangling with Vitter and the GOP over Gina McCarthy, President
Obama's nominee for EPA administrator.
Currently, there are
6,985 chemical facilities across the country that, in a "worst-case
scenario" such as an accident or terrorist attack, would put
populations of 1,000 people or more at risk, according to the
Congressional Research Service. Accidents at 90 of the facilities
across the country would put populations of over 1 million in danger.
1 comment:
Accidents happen. But multiple accidents over a brief period, say less than 5 years, or large accidents that kill dozens should not happen. Mostly they do not.
and this would keep them from happening. If you are the CEO, or board chairman and there is lethal accident that kills more than 10 within 5 years of a government citation or a prior accident than you will be taken out and shot. If there is an accident that kills more than 50, than even if there is no prior adverse history, then we will take you out and shoot you. Also, your estate will be divided among the survivors and victims.
If the accident kills more than 100, we will kill you and your immediate family.
This is called deterrence. If you have a law like that on the books, than the people who are responsible will suddenly be much more responsible and safety conscious.
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