Texas fertilizer plant was storing highly explosive ammonium nitrate

[ProSense]

Texas fertilizer plant was storing highly explosive ammonium nitrate

by Laura Clawson

At least 12 people are dead and more than 200 injured in the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, Wednesday night. The town's mayor has said that 15 were killed, including five workers at the plant, five fire fighters, and four EMTs, but that number has not been confirmed.

While the Texas explosion has been overshadowed by the Boston Marathon bombing and Friday's manhunt for Dzhokhan Tsarnaev, this explosion also raises major questions about public safety and the function of government. In 2010, 4,690 workers were killed on the job, an average of 13 every day. The government agencies tasking with inspecting worksites and ensuring safety are terribly understaffed, business owners and managers are rarely charged with crimes even for willful violations leading to worker deaths, and even fines for worker deaths are routinely negotiated down to shockingly low numbers. We don't yet know what kind of justice the owners of the West Fertilizer Co. will face. But we do know that the plant fit into America's patterns of weak oversight.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration had not inspected the plant since 1985, when it was cited for five serious violations and fined $30. Yes, 30 whole dollars. The company has also been fined in recent years, including by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for not having filed a risk-management plan and for safety violations, respectively. Friday, reports emerged that the anhydrous ammonia that was widely known to be at the plant and which had featured in the 2011 risk-management plan in which the company said the plant posed no risks was not the only product being stored there. The plant:

<...> had informed a state agency in February that it was storing up to 270 tons of ammonium nitrate—the highly explosive chemical compound used in the domestic terror attack on the Oklahoma City federal building. <...>

It's not clear whether the ammonium nitrate, which was not initially reported as being present at the site in the wake of Wednesday's massive blast, was responsible for the explosion, or whether volunteer firefighters battling a fire at the facility knew of its presence. Under state law, hazardous chemicals must be disclosed to the community fire department and to the county emergency planning agency, in addition to the state.

So there's still a lot to be learned about how this happened, but whatever the answers, it's a virtual certainty that no one will go to jail for this deadly explosion. It's important to remember, though, that while most deaths on the job don't make the news outside their immediate areas, death on the job is a daily occurrence, and justice is rare.

2:08 PM PT: Reports are now 13 dead and 60 missing.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/19/1203217/-Texas-fertilizer-plant-was-storing-highly-explosive-ammonium-nitrate

[LisaL]

1. Missing?

I think we all know what that means.

[elehhhhna]

2. oh, wait, two guys from BP are on trial -- but not management. Never management.

[ProSense]

4. Up to 73 likely dead in this case of utter negligence. n/t

[DreamGypsy]

3. Oh, ammonium nitrate is dangerous?? You'd think Texans would know: Texas City exploded...

... 66 years ago.

I searched for other references to violations at Adair's plant and found this article in Forbes: Plant In Texas Blast Had 2006 Safety Investigation

The article discusses provides similar though not the same information as the DailyKos link above. However, the last paragraph of the article really got my attention:

In a kind of sick coincidence the West explosion comes exactly 66 years after America’s worst ever industrial disaster. On April 16, 1947 a fire on board a freighter at the Texas City port ignited a cargo of ammonium nitrate and caused an explosion so enormous that the ship’s anchor weighing 1.5 tons was thrown 2 miles away. Nearly 600 were killed in the blast.

Here's the story from This Day in History April 16, 1947:

At 9:12 a.m. in Texas City's port on Galveston Bay, a fire aboard the French freighter Grandcamp ignites ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials in the ship's hold, causing a massive blast that destroys much of the city and takes nearly 600 lives.

The port of Texas City, a small industrial city with a population of about 18,000, was teaming with chemical plants and oil refineries that provided steady, good-paying jobs for much of the town. In the industrial sector, minor accidents and chemical fires were rather commonplace, and many stood around the port casually watching the reddish orange blaze that broke out on the Grandcamp early on a Wednesday morning. Twenty-seven members of the Texas City Volunteer Fire Department were called out to douse the flames, but the ship was so hot that the water from their fire hoses was instantly vaporized.

At 12 minutes past nine, the fire caught the freighter's stores of ammonium nitrate, a compound used to make dynamite, and Texas City exploded. Wood-frame houses in the city were flattened, additional blasts were triggered at nearby chemical plants, and fires broke out across the city. The mushroom cloud from the blast rose 2,000 feet, and fragments of the Grandcamp were hurled thousands of feet into the air, landing on buildings and people. The ship's anchor, weighing 1.5 tons, was flung two miles and embedded 10 feet into the ground at the Pan American refinery. The explosion was heard as far as 150 miles away.

Devastating fires burned for days, and on April 17 the freighter High Flyer, also loaded with nitrates, exploded, further devastating the port and causing a new string of explosions at nearby plants. Fortunately, most of Texas City's population had been evacuated by then, and the city's losses were primarily material. By late in the day on April 18, emergency crews had the situation under control. Some eyewitnesses said the scene was worse than anything they had seen in Europe during World War II. The Grandcamp explosion was the most devastating industrial accident in U.S. history, with 600 people killed and more than 3,000 wounded.

A five-story rubber factory beside the slip

You'd think we'd learn...but history teaches us otherwise.

(on edit: added the photo)

[Ilsa]

5. I keep wondering about the mission of

the firefighters. Were they getting everyone out? At what point does someone (who?) tell them, "It's hopeless. We need to leave and evacuate the area. It's too dangerous to be here." Or were they trying to save the business? Save jobs?

I suspect these questions will be answered, but the answers won't be made public.