Five Years After The Explosion In West, Texas, Very Little Has Been Done To Prevent Another One
On April 17, 2013, Tommy Muska, a volunteer firefighter and the mayor of West, Texas, explained what had happened in his town.
“At approximately 7:30, the West fertilizer plant was on fire. Fully consumed,” he said. “At approximately 7:55 the plant exploded. Fifty to 60 houses in a five-block area radius were damaged. Heavily damaged.”
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the fire and explosion at the central Texas fertilizer plant. The blast killed 15 people and damaged more than 150 buildings. From a regulatory standpoint, what has happened to make sure that this type of catastrophe doesn’t happen again?
“The short answer is: very little,” says Thomas O. McGarity, professor of administrative and environmental law at the University of Texas at Austin. “The Occupational Safety and Health Administration wrote some guidelines, but basically did very little. Did nothing really, beyond that. The Environmental Protection Agency did amend its process of safety or risk management guidelines that would prevent explosions – required a few more training sessions, and that sort of thing. Really I think they did improve things somewhat, though they did not address the precise substance, which was ammonium nitrate, that blew up at the plant.”
Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/five-years-after-the-explosion-in-west-texas-very-little-has-been-done-to-prevent-another-one/
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