West Fertilizer Plant's Hazards Eluded Regulators For Nearly 30 Years

[white cloud]

WEST, Texas -- Long before it captured national headlines as the scene of a lethal industrial explosion, the fertilizer plant on the edge of this central Texas town had been a community fixture, a crucial supply depot for farmers and ranchers who worked the surrounding pastures.

No one seemed to regard it as a threat.

"It's been there so long that you just take it for granted," said Jeanette Karlik, a columnist for the local newspaper, the West News.

That same attitude -- the assumption that nothing of consequence could go wrong here -- appears to have shaped the actions of the seven or more state and federal regulatory agencies that collectively shared oversight responsibility for the plant, according to a Huffington Post investigation.

Through interviews with former regulators and community leaders, as well as a review of hundreds of pages of documents going back to 1976, a sense emerges that no institution sounded the alarm here, even as fertilizer piled up inside the plant, creating a potentially deadly tinderbox in close proximity to the town. No one effectively prepared for the emergency that eventually materialized, leaving this community uniquely vulnerable to the tragedy that unfolded last week when the plant caught fire and exploded, killing 14 people and ripping apart an apartment building, a school and dozens of homes.

In June 2011 -- less than two years before the explosion -- the private company that owns the plant, the West Fertilizer Co., filed an emergency response plan with the Environmental Protection Agency stating that there was "no" risk of fire or explosion at the facility. The worst scenario that plant officials acknowledged was the possible release of a small amount of ammonia gas into the atmosphere.

Fertilizer long has been recognized as a dangerous combustible material. One variety, ammonium nitrate -- a pellet-shaped product typically shipped in large bags -- caused the deadliest industrial accident in American history, the explosion of a ship at the port of Texas City in 1947, which took the lives of more than 500 people.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/west-fertilizer_n_3134202.html?ir=Business&utm_campaign=042313&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-business&utm_content=FullStory#slide=more292737

[DhhD]

1. I would like to read the State and County Fire Marshal inspection records to include a Plan

of Evacuation in the event of a fire. And I would like to hear form the family member to persons responding to the fire as to who contacted them or let them know about the fire.

Seems like other plants should now build a retaining wall so that an explosion, should one occur due to lightening (or what ever the ignition), would blow upward. Anything on the other side of a retaining wall or railroad car will have less damage on the other side.

[Downwinder]

2. July 30, 2009 Bryan, Texas

A plant in Bryan, Texas (El Dorado Chemical Company), which processes ammonium nitrate into fertilizer, caught fire at about 11:40 am on July 30, 2009. Over 80,000 residents in the Bryan/College Station area were asked to evacuate south of town due to the toxic fumes this fire generated. Texas A&M University provided shelter at Reed Arena, a local venue on campus. Only minor injuries were reported.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters