Texas fertilizer company didn't heed disclosure rules before blast

[KeepItReal]

Source: Reuters

The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate - which can also be used in bomb making - unaware of any danger there.

Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren't shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.

"It seems this manufacturer was willfully off the grid," Rep. Bennie Thompson, (D-MS), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement. "This facility was known to have chemicals well above the threshold amount to be regulated under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act (CFATS), yet we understand that DHS did not even know the plant existed until it blew up."


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/20/us-usa-explosion-regulation-idUSBRE93J09N20130420

[GeorgeGist]

1. Maybe Brad Paisley can write a song.

Accidental Terrorist.

[PD Turk]

23. +1000!!

[shenmue]

2. 1,350 times.

"Did not tell."

Thank you, Republican deregulation. Allows companies to ignore safety, get away with anything and still kill their workers.

All of these son of a #$%& should be in jail for negligent homicide. Give all the money to the families who worked there. Because of some duplicitous management, the town blew up.

[Sunlei]

3. The owner and employees must have known it was burning and didn't even WARN PEOPLE AWAY.

[DhhD]

27. Wonder what was burning. And does ammonium nitrate react with water? What does the

Materials Safety and Data Sheets say about the compound, ammonium nitrate? Early pictures showed a creator under where the building housing it, once stood after the explosion.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. cue. . . .

Claude Rains

[cstanleytech]

5. So what does this mean as far as a lawsuit goes?

In other words does it void any liability policy and thus screw the people killed and or hurt or does it mean that the insurance company will still have to pay but then can legally got after the owners of the company and take it our of their hide by suing them?

[ReRe]

8. This is where they privatize the profits....

.... and socialize the "externalities" (fancy new universal gimmick-word they use instead of "damages.&quot They make all the money and we pay for all the clean-up & damages when it all goes "boom."

And what is so maddening about it all is that it's probably lawful!

Jobs have become way too expensive, if you ask me. We give subsidies and tax brakes to companies to come to our states and "create jobs." And when divied up, the state ends up paying millions for one job that pays minimum wage. Woosh! Where did that money go? It's all a shell game.

Insurance? I bet you they have very little if ANY insurance. As a matter of fact, they have an unseen insurance company. Us! The American People. The employee!

[Igel]

17. Probably nothing.

DHS wants to know where this stuff is because terrorists have been known to use it in ammonium-nitrate/diesel-oil bombs.

Common in Afghanistan and Iraq, but an oldie. McVeigh used that combination.

They don't check safety. They check for security. Hence the name, Dept. of Homeland Security, not "Dept. of Homeland Safety." That would be OSHA.

As for the report, I'd wait to see what "hold" meant to the reporter.

[surrealAmerican]

6. What do you call that situation where you knowingly break a law ...

... and it results in people's deaths?


Oh, yeah - you call that murder. This should be a criminal matter. This is precisely the sort of crime where a lengthy jail sentence would deter others from committing the same crime.

[daleo]

20. Reckless endangerment and criminal negligence, at least

[Moostache]

7. That company's owners should be fined out of existence.

Anyone who signed off on or directed the subterfuge to avoid regulation and inspections should be 100% broke and jailed for this. I hold these people in the same contempt that I hold the Boston Bomber Brothers. One set off bombs to kill people to make a point, the other put people inside a fucking bomb to make money - both deserve the fullest extent of the law for murder.

[Tumbulu]

9. How many other plants like this exist?

Guess it is time to start looking at this other cost of "conventional" agriculture. Organic farming began with the premise that these cheap to produce, dangerous chemical sources of nitrogen killed soil microbes and got the plants growing too big too fast. Creating all sorts of new insect and disease problems. That organic sources of nitrogen did not have these side effects. But organic sources of nitrogen cost more.

Every time I heard that stupid "farmer" involved with the Oklahoma City bombings claim he was an "organic" farmer I snorted- NO organic farmer has any of that stuff around- we would lose our certification immediately. It is the whole foundation of the system.

I still cannot believe that that obvious lie was not ever caught.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Throw the book at owners / managers, seize the company, sell it, & give proceeds to victims. nt

[SaveAmerica]

11. Could they be selling under the table to conspiracy theorists and

potential Oklahoma City bombers?

[callous taoboy]

12. Someone, please make the documentary, "Rick Perry's Texas."

[randr]

13. The real American homegrown terrorists

are all corporate and operate at with the approval of government bodies.

[VPStoltz]

14. Probably not something required by regulation hating Texass.

Now, Perry is asking the Fed to pay up on the damages it has caused all those good people.

[tpsbmam]

21. I note that Perry's own Department of Health Services KNEW in 2012 there were 270 tons

of this highly volatile fertilizer there and did not report it to DHS....and, in fact, did nothing with that information. How is that sliding under so many radars? That is the department that deserves the bulk of the blame! Yes, the system broke down in many, many ways but this department had the information and did nothing with it!

[4dsc]

15. Small budget for the DHS?

Though the DHS has the authority to carry out spot inspections at facilities, it has a small budget for that and only a "small number" of field auditors, the person said.

Did anyone else catch this? Should we thank republicans again for this or this a bit of misinformation?

[justabob]

24. same is true for a lot of regulators

There are laws and disclosure requirements on the books, even in Texas, but in a neat trick the legislature refuses to fund the compliance department to enforce the laws/regs. Nice and tidy.

[Big Tent]

16. Fertilizer Plant Regulation

Democrats should tie fertilizer plant regulations to all relief funding in Texas.

[kentauros]

25. No, we shouldn't do that.

Because that punishes the victims, not the perpetrators.

[1Greensix]

18. Damn Gov'mnt regalations

That plant blew up cause a them damn gov'mnt regalations, and that socialist Obama.
In TEXAS gov'mnt regalations is just like gun control laws, hated and willfully ignored.

"Businesses work best when they Regulate themselves." George Bush

So. Who's going to prison for this murder of 12 people???

[geek tragedy]

19. The Texas Miracle in all its glory. nt

[daleo]

22. Properly run fertilizer plants shouldn't explode

They just shouldn't. Things like this are preventable, with proper standards.

[One_Life_To_Give]

26. Small plants not going to have dedicated person to research new regs

Multinationals can have departments dedicated to regulatory compliance. But your small businesses can't afford one person just for researching compliance. Some poor manager gets stuck with it because there is no one else to do the job. Has to be a better way to help the little guys comply without breaking the bank. But the multinationals like things the way they are.

[DhhD]

28. The State, County and City Fire Marshals should do a regularly scheduled inspection to see if the

business is up to code. Maybe water is not the correct fire extinguishing process. Sand may be the correct product. See the MSDS-Materials Safety and Data Sheets Manual for chemical compounds and how they are to be stored.