• U.S. chemical industry comes out swinging against new Senate plant security bill

    Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) introduced a 107-page chemical plant safety bill which goes further than a similar bill — HR-2868 — approved by the House last November; Lautenberg’s bill requires the highest-risk facilities replace the most toxic and volatile chemicals they use with inherently safer technology (IST); it also set a provision, known as private right of action (PRA), which would allow citizens to file suit in federal court against DHS to force enforcement against a specific facility, and would allow private citizen petitions to DHS to demand federal investigation of suspected security shortcomings at particular sites

  • Napolitano: private sector-government cooperation needed for chemical plant security

    DHS secretary says federal-private collaboration is needed to secure the U.S. chemical plants; Napolitano said common-sense performance standards help protect chemical facilities against threats without compromising their operational characteristics or efficiency

  • New Jersey chemical plant vulnerable

    Chemical plants must submit a report to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) detailing what they — the plants — consider a “worst case disaster scenario”; Kuehne Chemical said that for its South Kearny, New Jersey, chemical facility the worst that could happen would be the catastrophic release of one 90-ton rail car of chlorine gas which would put 12 million people at risk within a 14-mile radius of the plant in the New York-New Jersey region; trouble is, the company keeps more than one chlorine-filled rail car on the site, in addition to on-site storage of 2 million pounds of chlorine gas, so a worst-case disaster at the site could be far worse than the company’s scenario

  • Panel urges extradition, compensation in Bhopal disaster case

    The 1984 Bhopal chemical plant disaster caused the death of 15,000; hundreds of thousands were permanently disabled; and thousands of children were born with birth defects; an Indian government panel has decided to seek the extradition of former Union Carbide Corp. chief Warren Anderson to sand trial in India for; the panel also recommended that the Indian government demand that Dow Chemical Co. — which acquired Union Carbide in 1999 — pay $325 million in compensation for the families of the dead and disabled

    • view counter

  • How safe are the Gulf oil dispersants?

    As of 14 June, more than 3.34 million liters of dispersant had been sprayed onto oil on the sea surface; at least a further 1.52 million liters had been pumped into the oil gushing from the stricken well some 1,500 meters below sea level; the use of such large volumes at depth is unprecedented, and marine biologists are concerned about possible toxicity to organisms, including shrimp and fish larvae

  • Trains still carry lethal cargo through Dallas-Forth Worth, other American cities

    A cloud of chlorine gas could kill up to 17,500 people and injure 100,000 others within several miles; about 1,300 chlorine-filled cars go through Union Pacific Railroad’s Davidson Yard in west Fort Worth in a typical year; the U.S. railroad industry, which is required by federal common-carrier law to ship chemicals such as chlorine, transported some 75,000 tank cars of toxic inhalants nationwide in 2009

    • view counter

  • Debate over chemical plant security heats up -- again, II

    Some lawmakers want to toughen up the chemical plant safety legislation, due for renewal before it expires this fall; the chemical industry prefers the continuation of the current measure, which was passed in 2007; the key debate is over whether or not DHS should be in a position to impose the use of safer and less volatile chemical on those plants closest to large urban centers; the industry points out that many plants have already made the switch voluntarily

  • Debate over chemical plant security heats up -- again, I

    The current chemical plant security law was passed in 2006 and expires in October; some lawmakers want to strengthen it, while the chemical industry want the law renewed without changes, saying chemical plants have taken steps to prevent accidental or terrorist-induced releases of dangerous compounds

  • Hearing to be held on lack of chemical plant inspections

    There are about 15,000 chemical plants in the United States; 6,000 of them were supposed to be inspected by DHS to make sure their security protocols comply with the current Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program, or CFATS, but only 12 have been inspected

  • Web site lists rail-carried hazardous chemicals in real time

    Railroad operator CSX now provides first responders and the Chemical Transportation Emergency Center (CHEMTREC) access to secure Web-based information which allows CHEMTREC to find a train number, tank car number, and identify what is being transported in those cars; BNSF also provides CHEMTREC with manifest information, but only after a derailment; BNSF does, however, provide municipalities a list of chemicals it routinely transports through cities

  • AWWA: Chemical security bill needs local decision power

    The American Water Works Association advises Congress that any new chemical security legislation should reflect the need for local water experts to make key treatment decisions and protect sensitive information from non-essential personnel

  • Growing demand for chemical plants to switch to IST

    A 2008 analysis estimated that seven of Clorox’s bleach plants placed a total of nearly ten million people in the United States at risk from chlorine gas release; Clorox announced last year that it was phasing out processing chlorine gas into sodium hypochlorite in its plants; trouble is, Clorox consumes only about 1 percent of the chlorine gas used each year in the United States, thus, the overall impact of Clorox’s positive move on the country’s risk is minimal

  • New survey shows many water, wastewater plants improve chemical security

    New study says 554 drinking water and wastewater plants in 47 states have replaced extremely hazardous substances with safer and more secure chemicals or processes; at least 2,600 additional water and wastewater facilities still use large amounts of chlorine gas

  • Chemical facility security bills would limit local control

    Water industry insider says that a new bill, creating new chemical security requirements for drinking water utilities, would shift control over security and emergency measures in water treatment facilities from local authorities to the federal government; he is not sure this is a good idea.

  • House tightens chemical plant safety bill

    A House bill is set to tighten some provisions of the original chemical plant safety bill of two years ago; specifically, the House bill demands that chemical plants be obligated to replace the most toxic and volatile — and, hence, the most dangerous — chemicals they use in their operations with safer substitutes — but in a nod to the chemical industry, the bill focuses only on the highest-risk plants, and it would make them use safer chemicals or processes only when DHS determines that they are feasible and cost-effective