Fertilizer Plant explosion near Waco

[ErnestLynch]

This is very bad. A lot of people were killed in this explosion.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/04/17/fertilizer-plant-explosion-reported-north-of-waco/

Measured 2.1 on the richter scale, blew out windows 15 miles away, razed a 50 unit apartment complex...vaporized several firefighters and emergency personnel.

[sook]

jesus fucking christ. This is scary to watch. Looks like ammonium nitrate and reminds me of Texas City ammonium nitrate that happened TODAY Texas City, 1947. Same date, April 17.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ROrpKx3aIjA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ROrpKx3aIjA

[boutons_deux]

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=west.tx+fertilizer+plant&hl=en&ll=31.816464,-97.087829&spn=0.001953,0.003484&sll=31.790783,-97.099829&sspn=0.01563,0.027874&t=h&hq=west.tx+fertilizer+plant&z=19

[velik_m]

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=west.tx+fertilizer+plant&hl=en&ll=31.816464,-97.087829&spn=0.001953,0.003484&sll=31.790783,-97.099829&sspn=0.01563,0.027874&t=h&hq=west.tx+fertilizer+plant&z=19

Wait somebody put a middle school near chemical plant? Or vice versa?

[The Reckoning]

fertilizer. shit to grow crops.

[BobaFett1]

This is very bad. A lot of people were killed in this explosion.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/04/17/fertilizer-plant-explosion-reported-north-of-waco/

Measured 2.1 on the richter scale, blew out windows 15 miles away, razed a 50 unit apartment complex...vaporized several firefighters and emergency personnel.



God bless those folks

[boutons_deux]

fertilizer. shit to grow crops.

and blow up OKC govt buildings

[BobaFett1]

Man just breaks my heart when this shit happens.

[boutons_deux]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/04/live-updates-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-injures-more-than-100/


So what was the cause?

mgmt not training kids?

absence of a culture of safety, the typical BigOil style?

simple stupidity?

old equipment being run until it broke, the typical BigOil style?


BigAg is not worker friendly place, toxic chemicals causing cancer, etc, powerful machinery, pissed-off bubbas with guns, etc.


NPR did a great series on "walking down the corn", 500+ killed in grain bins, over many years.

"The last 40 years, close to 500 people have suffocated in grain bins. 2010 was the worst year on record. We also documented the weak enforcement of worker safety laws that regulate grain storage and handling."

"Yeah, it is, and it's also illegal to send somebody into a grain bin without proper training, without safety harnesses and lifelines, without shutting off and locking out the machinery that creates this kind of quicksand flow that caught these boys. All of that happened in the Mount Carroll case. And we also found that employers have done this sort of thing over and over and over again, you know, despite hundreds of deaths and despite extensive safety awareness programs and warnings that have been sent out to the grain industry."

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/30/175765575/npr-grain-series-investigates-industry-sparks-response

in fact, all of America is a nasty, dangerous place to work.

"Workplace Homicides from Shootings

Recent tragedies around the country have focused attention on workplace violence in the United States. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides an annual count of fatal work injuries in the United States, including homicides. From 2006 to 2010, an average of 551 workers per year were killed as a result of work-related homicides."

http://www.bls.gov/iif/#tables (http://www.bls.gov/iif/#tables)

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm

Human-American lives (99%) are cheap, Corporate-American lives (1%) are sacred, and enriched.

[Thread]

and blow up OKC govt buildings

That was different. That's so the U.S. Gov't would never roll an American tank over American soil over American citizens ever again. McVeigh broke 'em of that habit early on.

[BobaFett1]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/04/live-updates-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-injures-more-than-100/


So what was the cause?

mgmt not training kids?

absence of a culture of safety, the typical BigOil style?

simple stupidity?

old equipment being run until it broke, the typical BigOil style?


BigAg is not worker friendly place, toxic chemicals causing cancer, etc, powerful machinery, pissed-off bubbas with guns, etc.


NPR did a great series on "walking down the corn", 500+ killed in grain bins, over many years.

"The last 40 years, close to 500 people have suffocated in grain bins. 2010 was the worst year on record. We also documented the weak enforcement of worker safety laws that regulate grain storage and handling."

"Yeah, it is, and it's also illegal to send somebody into a grain bin without proper training, without safety harnesses and lifelines, without shutting off and locking out the machinery that creates this kind of quicksand flow that caught these boys. All of that happened in the Mount Carroll case. And we also found that employers have done this sort of thing over and over and over again, you know, despite hundreds of deaths and despite extensive safety awareness programs and warnings that have been sent out to the grain industry."

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/30/175765575/npr-grain-series-investigates-industry-sparks-response

in fact, all of America is a nasty, dangerous place to work.

"Workplace Homicides from Shootings

Recent tragedies around the country have focused attention on workplace violence in the United States. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides an annual count of fatal work injuries in the United States, including homicides. From 2006 to 2010, an average of 551 workers per year were killed as a result of work-related homicides."

http://www.bls.gov/iif/#tables (http://www.bls.gov/iif/#tables)

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm

Human-American lives (99%) are cheap, Corporate-American lives (1%) are sacred, and enriched.





Lets not turn a sad event like this into a right or left issue.

[boutons_deux]

Lets not turn a sad event like this into a right or left issue.

let's not turn an event like into yet another event buried in propaganda to hide the causes for what's probably totally unnecessary, 100% preventable if BUSINESS had invested in well-known, proven equipment design and safety practices.

let's not turn it into fatalistic Act of God, nothing could have been done, If Allah Wills It, It Is Written, etc, etc, and move on after 15 minutes to the next entertainment event.

[Thread]

Just thank Christ it's not terror related. We're vested 100% in the Boston/northeast region singin' patriotic tunes & playin' MLB. Got no logistics to be fuckin' around down in some "south Bronx shithole" in Texas.

They're dead down there, but, it's a different kind of dead. Like when the boys died under Bush in the middle-East vs dieing under Hussein Obama in the middle-East. Sure, they all come back in a full metal jacket, but, if Media fled Dover AFB after Bush left does it matter? No. Not unless you have a U.S. Gov't notification team on your fuckin' front porch stoop.

[Winehole23]

double takes

[Winehole23]

http://www.hark.com/clips/mlcnkkvfjk-mr-clean-was-from-south-bronx-shithole

[TeyshaBlue]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/04/live-updates-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-injures-more-than-100/


So what was the cause?

mgmt not training kids?

absence of a culture of safety, the typical BigOil style?

simple stupidity?

old equipment being run until it broke, the typical BigOil style?


BigAg is not worker friendly place, toxic chemicals causing cancer, etc, powerful machinery, pissed-off bubbas with guns, etc.


NPR did a great series on "walking down the corn", 500+ killed in grain bins, over many years.

"The last 40 years, close to 500 people have suffocated in grain bins. 2010 was the worst year on record. We also documented the weak enforcement of worker safety laws that regulate grain storage and handling."

"Yeah, it is, and it's also illegal to send somebody into a grain bin without proper training, without safety harnesses and lifelines, without shutting off and locking out the machinery that creates this kind of quicksand flow that caught these boys. All of that happened in the Mount Carroll case. And we also found that employers have done this sort of thing over and over and over again, you know, despite hundreds of deaths and despite extensive safety awareness programs and warnings that have been sent out to the grain industry."

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/30/175765575/npr-grain-series-investigates-industry-sparks-response

in fact, all of America is a nasty, dangerous place to work.

"Workplace Homicides from Shootings

Recent tragedies around the country have focused attention on workplace violence in the United States. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides an annual count of fatal work injuries in the United States, including homicides. From 2006 to 2010, an average of 551 workers per year were killed as a result of work-related homicides."

http://www.bls.gov/iif/#tables (http://www.bls.gov/iif/#tables)

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm

Human-American lives (99%) are cheap, Corporate-American lives (1%) are sacred, and enriched.




Die in a fire.

[boutons_deux]

Die in a fire.

TB :lol G.F.Y.

[Winehole23]

bot might not die in a fire, if the physical body perishes. might keep spamming us.

[TeyshaBlue]

TB :lol G.F.Y.

Fuck off, coward.

[BobaFett1]

let's not turn an event like into yet another event buried in propaganda to hide the causes for what's probably totally unnecessary, 100% preventable if BUSINESS had invested in well-known, proven equipment design and safety practices.

let's not turn it into fatalistic Act of God, nothing could have been done, If Allah Wills It, It Is Written, etc, etc, and move on after 15 minutes to the next entertainment event.

So typical of you blame the business and propagnada? wtf? are you even from America?:bang

[boutons_deux]

Fuck off, coward.

TB :lol

[boutons_deux]

So typical of you blame the business and propagnada? wtf? are you even from America?:bang

:lol

so the West Fertilizer Company has NO GUILT, SUSPICION OR ANY ACCOUNTABILITY for THEIR fert? :lol

West Fertilizer Co. Told The EPA There Was 'No' Risk Of Explosions

Officials at the West Fertilizer Co. plant where a massive explosion killed (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/fertilizer-plant-explosion-texas_n_3106023.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Business) as many as 15 people and injured more than 160 on Wednesday told the Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities that the factory presented no risk of explosion.

The company wrote that there was “no” risk of fire or explosion (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20130417-west-fertilizer-plant-said-in-report-that-it-presented-no-risk.ece) on a required emergency planning report, according to a review of the documents by the Dallas Morning News.
In the report, the company said it had up to 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia -- a gas with suffocating fumes (http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/17/us/anhydrous-ammonia-dangers/index.html) that can explode if it’s lit at very high temperatures (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/18/the-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-is-horrific-but-how-common-is-this/) -- on hand, but indicated that the worst-case scenario that could take place would be a 10-minute release of the gas that wouldn’t result in any injuries or deaths.

(Read more at the Dallas Morning News) (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20130417-west-fertilizer-plant-said-in-report-that-it-presented-no-risk.ece)

Sergeant W. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police said in a press conference Thursday morning (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/us/huge-blast-at-texas-fertilizer-plant.html?pagewanted=1&hp) that while there’s no indication the blast was a result of criminal activity, “we’re not ruling that out,” according to the New York Times.

West Fertilizer Co. could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The company was cited in 2006 for failing to get or qualify for a permit (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/texas-fertilizer-plant-cited_n_3107094.html), according to the Associated Press. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also investigated the plant that year after receiving a complaint of an ammonia smell that was “very bad.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/west-fertilizer-co-epa_n_3110050.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/west-fertilizer-co-epa_n_3110050.html)

[BobaFett1]

:lol

so the West Fertilizer Company has NO GUILT, SUSPICION OR ANY ACCOUNTABILITY for THEIR fert? :lol

West Fertilizer Co. Told The EPA There Was 'No' Risk Of Explosions

Officials at the West Fertilizer Co. plant where a massive explosion killed (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/fertilizer-plant-explosion-texas_n_3106023.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Business) as many as 15 people and injured more than 160 on Wednesday told the Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities that the factory presented no risk of explosion.

The company wrote that there was “no” risk of fire or explosion (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20130417-west-fertilizer-plant-said-in-report-that-it-presented-no-risk.ece) on a required emergency planning report, according to a review of the documents by the Dallas Morning News.
In the report, the company said it had up to 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia -- a gas with suffocating fumes (http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/17/us/anhydrous-ammonia-dangers/index.html) that can explode if it’s lit at very high temperatures (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/18/the-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-is-horrific-but-how-common-is-this/) -- on hand, but indicated that the worst-case scenario that could take place would be a 10-minute release of the gas that wouldn’t result in any injuries or deaths.

(Read more at the Dallas Morning News) (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20130417-west-fertilizer-plant-said-in-report-that-it-presented-no-risk.ece)

Sergeant W. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police said in a press conference Thursday morning (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/us/huge-blast-at-texas-fertilizer-plant.html?pagewanted=1&hp) that while there’s no indication the blast was a result of criminal activity, “we’re not ruling that out,” according to the New York Times.

West Fertilizer Co. could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The company was cited in 2006 for failing to get or qualify for a permit (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/texas-fertilizer-plant-cited_n_3107094.html), according to the Associated Press. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also investigated the plant that year after receiving a complaint of an ammonia smell that was “very bad.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/west-fertilizer-co-epa_n_3110050.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/west-fertilizer-co-epa_n_3110050.html)




huffington post more slime. I agree if plant fucked up then fire ass and throw folks in jail but lets see what happened after the mess is done.

[boutons_deux]

huffington post more slime. I agree if plant fucked up then fire ass and throw folks in jail but lets see what happened after the mess is done.

It's the Dallas Morning News, and direct quoting of the company from non-Huff source. aka, simply reporting the All The News That You Won't Fit In.

[BobaFett1]

It's the Dallas Morning News, and direct quoting of the company from non-Huff source. aka, simply reporting the All The News That You Won't Fit In.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/west-fertilizer-co-epa_n_3110050.html is your link. Anyway folks that owned company and was at fault.

[TeyshaBlue]

:lol

so the West Fertilizer Company has NO GUILT, SUSPICION OR ANY ACCOUNTABILITY for THEIR fert? :lol

West Fertilizer Co. Told The EPA There Was 'No' Risk Of Explosions

Officials at the West Fertilizer Co. plant where a massive explosion killed (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/fertilizer-plant-explosion-texas_n_3106023.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Business) as many as 15 people and injured more than 160 on Wednesday told the Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities that the factory presented no risk of explosion.

The company wrote that there was “no” risk of fire or explosion (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20130417-west-fertilizer-plant-said-in-report-that-it-presented-no-risk.ece) on a required emergency planning report, according to a review of the documents by the Dallas Morning News.
In the report, the company said it had up to 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia -- a gas with suffocating fumes (http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/17/us/anhydrous-ammonia-dangers/index.html) that can explode if it’s lit at very high temperatures (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/18/the-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-is-horrific-but-how-common-is-this/) -- on hand, but indicated that the worst-case scenario that could take place would be a 10-minute release of the gas that wouldn’t result in any injuries or deaths.

(Read more at the Dallas Morning News) (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20130417-west-fertilizer-plant-said-in-report-that-it-presented-no-risk.ece)

Sergeant W. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police said in a press conference Thursday morning (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/us/huge-blast-at-texas-fertilizer-plant.html?pagewanted=1&hp) that while there’s no indication the blast was a result of criminal activity, “we’re not ruling that out,” according to the New York Times.

West Fertilizer Co. could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The company was cited in 2006 for failing to get or qualify for a permit (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/texas-fertilizer-plant-cited_n_3107094.html), according to the Associated Press. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also investigated the plant that year after receiving a complaint of an ammonia smell that was “very bad.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/west-fertilizer-co-epa_n_3110050.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/west-fertilizer-co-epa_n_3110050.html)




lol simpleton. What happens when you mix water with anhydrous ammonia?

Dumbass. There was no explosion until the VFD hit it with water, ergo, there was no structural risk of explosion. Huffpo could have figured this out, if they wanted to. And, since we don't even have a cause of the accident yet, your dancing on the graves of victims to push your chicken-shit maran ideology is pathetic. Exactly what I would expect of a coward.

[BobaFett1]

lol simpleton. What happens when you mix water with anhydrous ammonia?

Dumbass. There was no explosion until the VFD hit it with water, ergo, there was no structural risk of explosion. Huffpo could have figured this out, if they wanted to. And, since we don't even have a cause of the accident yet, your dancing on the graves of victims to push your chicken-shit maran ideology is pathetic. Exactly what I would expect of a coward.

Huffpo is so Tmz I be shamed to use them for a link.

[TeyshaBlue]

Fuck the piece of shit enlightened progressive comments in the Huffpo article.

It's a shame. HuffPo is actually a fairly decent read. But they can fuck up like anybody else.

The moonbats came out for that article.

[boutons_deux]

lol simpleton. What happens when you mix water with anhydrous ammonia?

Dumbass. There was no explosion until the VFD hit it with water, ergo, there was no structural risk of explosion. Huffpo could have figured this out, if they wanted to. And, since we don't even have a cause of the accident yet, your dancing on the graves of victims to push your chicken-shit maran ideology is pathetic. Exactly what I would expect of a coward.

I'm not dancing on the graves.

I'm betting that if evidence was not destroyed, the WFC will be found guilty of bad/no safety practices, maintenance, design, whatever.

Now that they've seen their town destroyed and lost family, friends by WFC, some employees, ex-employees may come forward with the damning evidence that WFC was a profit-only bunch of cowboy assholes.

[BobaFett1]

I'm not dancing on the graves.

I'm betting that if evidence was not destroyed, the WFC will be found guilty of bad/no safety practices, maintenance, design, whatever.

Now that they've seen their town destroyed and lost family, friends by WFC, some employees, ex-employees may come forward with the damning evidence that WFC was a profit-only bunch of cowboy assholes.



You better be able to back your statement up.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'm not dancing on the graves.

That's exactly what you're doing. Using the victims as a foundation to pile your idiotic buzzwords upon.

So what was the cause?

mgmt not training kids?

absence of a culture of safety, the typical BigOil style?

simple stupidity?

old equipment being run until it broke, the typical BigOil style?


BigAg is not worker friendly place, toxic chemicals causing cancer, etc, powerful machinery, pissed-off bubbas with guns, etc.

Fuck you. You don't know the first thing about what happened, but you've already made up your mind. Fucking coward.

[BobaFett1]

That's exactly what you're doing. Using the victims as a foundation to pile your idiotic buzzwords upon.


Fuck you. You don't know the first thing about what happened, but you've already made up your mind. Fucking coward.

TB they want to jump on the blame game be4 they have all the facts.

[TeyshaBlue]

But, I can totally understand why you're too cowardly to examine your motives.

[TeyshaBlue]

TB they want to jump on the blame game be4 they have all the facts.

STFU...you aint much better.

[BobaFett1]

STFU...you aint much better.

I feel I am much better my brother.:toast

[boutons_deux]

That's exactly what you're doing. Using the victims as a foundation to pile your idiotic buzzwords upon.


Fuck you. You don't know the first thing about what happened, but you've already made up your mind. Fucking coward.

well, we'll see if my hunch is right or if you giving the benefit of the doubt to some podunk TX fert company's management is. Less the 10 employees, do you wonder if they have a safety/compliance officer to protect employees and community from their extremely explosive products? :lol

http://www.manta.com/c/mmcfc1w/west-fertilizer-co

[boutons_deux]

Regulators fined Texas plant for safety violations


Federal regulators fined the company that operates the Texas fertilizer plant that exploded overnight $10,000 last summer for safety violations. But the government accepted $5,250 after the company took what it described as corrective actions.

Records reviewed by The Associated Press show that the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration determined that the West Fertilizer Co. planned to transport anhydrous ammonia without making or following a security plan. An inspector also found that the plant's ammonia tanks weren't properly labeled.

http://www.counton2.com/story/22015660/regulators-fined-texas-plant-for-safety-violations

[BobaFett1]

Regulators fined Texas plant for safety violations


Federal regulators fined the company that operates the Texas fertilizer plant that exploded overnight $10,000 last summer for safety violations. But the government accepted $5,250 after the company took what it described as corrective actions.

Records reviewed by The Associated Press show that the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration determined that the West Fertilizer Co. planned to transport anhydrous ammonia without making or following a security plan. An inspector also found that the plant's ammonia tanks weren't properly labeled.

http://www.counton2.com/story/22015660/regulators-fined-texas-plant-for-safety-violations



























wait til the facts come out.

[TeyshaBlue]

well, we'll see if my hunch is right or if you giving the benefit of the doubt to some podunk TX fert company's management is. Less the 10 employees, do you wonder if they have a safety/compliance officer to protect employees and community from their extremely explosive products? :lol

http://www.manta.com/c/mmcfc1w/west-fertilizer-co

Even when you're wrong, you never admit it. Moot point, coward.

[boutons_deux]

Even when you're wrong, you never admit it. Moot point, coward.

TB :lol yet another non-response :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

TB :lol yet another non-response :lol

Yet another denial.

[Wild Cobra]

NPR did a great series on "walking down the corn", 500+ killed in grain bins, over many years.

"The last 40 years, close to 500 people have suffocated in grain bins. 2010 was the worst year on record. We also documented the weak enforcement of worker safety laws that regulate grain storage and handling."
OSHA considers them a confined workspace, and requires certain safely protocols. It is generally those performing the work that ignore the safely because the procedures are a hassle, and don't considering what can happen.

[boutons_deux]

OSHA considers them a confined workspace, and requires certain safely protocols. It is generally those performing the work that ignore the safely because the procedures are a hassle, and don't considering what can happen.

the company is responsible.

Any worker walking down grain should have a supervisor confirming they are wearing safety gear.

so fucking simple, if the employers really took employees lives seriously.

[Jacob1983]

I bet it was some hillbilly Tim McVeigh type that did this shit. There is no way that this was an accident. And who does this shit anyways? This has basically destroyed that town now. I used to drive through West all the time on I35. They have Czech food at one of the gas stations. People are evil and need to be bitch slapped for this.

[Drachen]

dad is on CNN with his daughter saying that they should watch this because "I knew it was going to explode and told my daughter that we were going to see a pretty good explosion"

Fuck dude.

[boutons_deux]

Hey, kids, it's safe distance, this oughta be fun to watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROrpKx3aIjA&feature=youtu.be

[BobaFett1]

I bet it was some hillbilly Tim McVeigh type that did this shit. There is no way that this was an accident. And who does this shit anyways? This has basically destroyed that town now. I used to drive through West all the time on I35. They have Czech food at one of the gas stations. People are evil and need to be bitch slapped for this.

Jacob1983 I thought same thing.

[Wild Cobra]

the company is responsible.

Any worker walking down grain should have a supervisor confirming they are wearing safety gear.

so fucking simple, if the employers really took employees lives seriously.
I suppose you want a supervisor to escort them to the bathroom too.

My God. Yes, the business ends up being responsible, but if the employes need their hands held, then they shouldn't have that job.

[Winehole23]

Jacob1983 I thought same thing.couldn't possibly be an accident. something tells me Rick Perry, Barack Obama and the local sheriff had advance knowledge.

[Winehole23]

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

[Wild Cobra]

couldn't possibly be an accident. something tells me Rick Perry, Barack Obama and the local sheriff had advance knowledge.
Huh?

Are you claiming fires don't accidentally happen?

I doubt that, so what am I missing?

[The Reckoning]

guy says in the video that "it should collapse." i think he was anticipating something far less severe.

by all means film it if you want, but dont bring your innocent daughter into it.

[CosmicCowboy]

Huh?

Are you claiming fires don't accidentally happen?

I doubt that, so what am I missing?

guess he should have put it in blue

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

STFU...you aint much better.

:lmao

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Can someone fill me in on why it's such a slam dunk that this wasn't an accident? (either that or just say it's a bunch of retarded conspiracy theorists convincing themselves this wasn't an accident)

[BobaFett1]

Can someone fill me in on why it's such a slam dunk that this wasn't an accident? (either that or just say it's a bunch of retarded conspiracy theorists convincing themselves this wasn't an accident)

DUNCANownsKOBE I would not be shocked if this was not a accident. I am gonna wait for the facts come out first.

[Winehole23]

Huh?

Are you claiming fires don't accidentally happen?

I doubt that, so what am I missing?was making fun of BobaFett's Boston Marathon bombing take. he's apparently got an "open mind" about this one.

[BobaFett1]

I suppose you want a supervisor to escort them to the bathroom too.

My God. Yes, the business ends up being responsible, but if the employes need their hands held, then they shouldn't have that job.

So if at my work I get gas in my eyes I sue my boss because I did not wear my Goggles for safety. GTFO boutons_deux.

[BobaFett1]

was making fun of BobaFett's Boston Marathon bombing take. he's apparently got an "open mind" about this one.

:lmao

[CosmicCowboy]

Of course this was an accident and probably compounded by volunteer firefighter error. I'm willing to bet the fire was just a fire and the explosion was a huge pressure vessel explosion. Anhydrous Ammonia "boils" at 28F and has to be kept in pressure tanks to remain in a liquid state. My guess is that the fire heated the tanks and caused the ammonia to vaporize increasing the pressure and it started releasing the pressure relief valve...because of the sudden pressure drop this gas released would be sub-zero and if firefighters were spraying water on the tank at the release point it would have immediately frozen and prevented the relief valve from working...then pressure built up to a couple thousand PSI and BOOM the tank came apart.

[boutons_deux]

I suppose you want a supervisor to escort them to the bathroom too.

My God. Yes, the business ends up being responsible, but if the employes need their hands held, then they shouldn't have that job.

GFY

any grunt employees undertaking well-known fatally dangerous tasks should be supervised, backed up, etc. The son of bitch under the grain bin who could have shut it off had not idea the kids were dying. how about a video camera so he could how the kids were doing? or a supevisor fucking supervising the kids?

[Drachen]

guess he should have put it in blue

No he shouldn't have. It didn't need the blue.

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm telling you guys, 9 out of 10 it was an ordinary fire that then caused a big pressure vessel of anhydrous ammonia to overpressurize and explode. I't was a pressure explosion and not a fertilizer explosion.

[CosmicCowboy]

You can even tell which direction the tank was facing...probably north south and the north head blew off first. This wasn't an explosion of concentric rings like a dart board...everything blew north like a shaped charge...

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/21/11/04/4493624/3/628x471.jpg

[boutons_deux]

My bet is an accidental fire, no fire extinguishers in the vicinity (another save-money error), very probably started by human error, carelessness.

Cowboys could have gone macho, devil-may-care, nobody-nothing-fucks-with-this-young-cowboy working around highly explosive material.

This fert material has exploded many times in the past, just like walking down the grain has killed 100s, nothing new here, no surprise.

The biggie was 1947, 500+ people killed.

CC with the pyrotechnic forensics! :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

My bet is an accidental fire, no fire extinguishers in the vicinity (another save-money error), very probably started by human error, carelessness.

Cowboys could have gone macho, devil-may-care, nobody-nothing-fucks-with-this-young-cowboy working around highly explosive material.

This fert material has exploded many times in the past, just like walking down the grain has killed 100s, nothing new here, no surprise.

The biggie was 1947, 500+ people killed.

CC with the pyrotechnic forensics! :lol

Hey fuckwad, Part of what I do is run an ASME/NBIC certified pressure vessel facility. Iv'e got a damn good idea how this shit works and a good idea of what it looks like when it doesn't. This was a fire and then a pressure vessel explosion. They supposedly had about 60,000# of anhydrous ammonia in a pressure tank. That converts to suddenly 1,250,000 cubic feet of "new" air being created when it blows and a resulting shock wave that expands at 3000+ feet per second. This wasn't a "flaming" explosion from combustion. This was a catastrophic pressure vessel failure that then blew flaming shit everywhere.

[Wild Cobra]

So if at my work I get gas in my eyes I sue my boss because I did not wear my Goggles for safety. GTFO boutons_deux.
Gas...

The job would have needed a respirator.

These places do train their employees, unless they hire contractors that provide their own training. It's going to be real rare to find an employer that doesn't do this. It is far more common that employees the shortcuts rather than supervisors, but it does happen both ways.

I don't agree with suing your employer for your failure to follow safety protocol, but the courts often awards such lawsuits.

[Wild Cobra]

GFY

any grunt employees undertaking well-known fatally dangerous tasks should be supervised, backed up, etc. The son of bitch under the grain bin who could have shut it off had not idea the kids were dying. how about a video camera so he could how the kids were doing? or a supevisor fucking supervising the kids?
Part of "confined space" requirements by OSHA is at least one more properly trained individual. There are different levels depending on the hazards involved. Supervisors often do not do the same work their employees do, and are often not qualified.

A remote video would not allow for proper response time.

Maybe you should find the OSHA guidelines and look up "confined space" requirements instead of talking out your ass.

[Wild Cobra]

I'm telling you guys, 9 out of 10 it was an ordinary fire that then caused a big pressure vessel of anhydrous ammonia to overpressurize and explode. I't was a pressure explosion and not a fertilizer explosion.
I agree that was likely it.

[CosmicCowboy]

Part of "confined space" requirements by OSHA is at least one more properly trained individual. There are different levels depending on the hazards involved. Supervisors often do not do the same work their employees do, and are often not qualified.

A remote video would not allow for proper response time.

Maybe you should find the OSHA guidelines and look up "confined space" requirements instead of talking out your ass.

He is an idiot. Everybody in my company is confined space qualified and we have all the gear including the oxygen analyzer/alarm. Most of the big plants we work at are just anal about safety. as usual, Boutons is blowing out shit he knows nothing about.

[CosmicCowboy]

Sadly, they will probably find eventually that the PRV on the tank was iced up by an over-exuberant volunteer firefighter spraying water on it instead of letting the gas escape like it is supposed to do. They should have called that plant a goner and been evacuating the neighborhood instead of spraying water on it. I realize they are all dead and I respect their service and their sacrifice and certainly wish it hadn't happened.

[Wild Cobra]

Sadly, they will probably find eventually that the PRV on the tank was iced up by an over-exuberant volunteer firefighter spraying water on it instead of letting the gas escape like it is supposed to do. They should have called that plant a goner and been evacuating the neighborhood instead of spraying water on it. I realize they are all dead and I respect their service and their sacrifice and certainly wish it hadn't happened.
Wow...

I assume they probably had volunteers. The fire department unit itself was certainly trained of the unique nature of the plant, but if they also had volunteers...

Good point.

However, shouldn't a pressure release valve be designed to not have that happen?

[CosmicCowboy]

Wow...

I assume they probably had volunteers. The fire department unit itself was certainly trained of the unique nature of the plant, but if they also had volunteers...

Good point.

However, shouldn't a pressure release valve be designed to not have that happen?

OK, we are getting to the outer fringe of speculation now. Remember we are dealing with a liquid under high pressure that turns to a gas at 28 degrees F. Ammonia is also a refrigerant. All the old ice plants used to use it. When the ammonia gas under pressure escapes into the atmosphere (goes from high pressure to low pressure) it goes massive sub zero. Add water/mist from a firehose from an untrained volunteer fireman and you have instant glacier encapsulating the relief valve.

[Wild Cobra]

OK, we are getting to the outer fringe of speculation now. Remember we are dealing with a liquid under high pressure that turns to a gas at 28 degrees F. Ammonia is also a refrigerant. All the old ice plants used to use it. When the ammonia gas under pressure escapes into the atmosphere (goes from high pressure to low pressure) it goes massive sub zero. Add water/mist from a firehose from an untrained volunteer fireman and you have instant glacier encapsulating the relief valve.
Yes, I understand that. I'll bet most here don't. I'll bet if that was the cause, someone either ignored training or wasn't trained. I guess it could have been damaged, but isn't such a system redundant when dealing with such a potentially large destructive force?

As for encasing it in ice, shouldn't the pressure break the ice? I was thinking a moving part would have to be frozen.

[CosmicCowboy]

Yes, I understand that. I'll bet most here don't. I'll bet if that was the cause, someone either ignored training or wasn't trained. I guess it could have been damaged, but isn't such a system redundant when dealing with such a potentially large destructive force?

As for encasing it in ice, shouldn't the pressure break the ice? I was thinking a moving part would have to be frozen.

Google pressure relief valve. It is a housing with an inlet and a discharge that has a seat and a corresponding stem/disc that is spring loaded to whatever pressure the valve is supposed to relieve at between the inlet and discharge. Ice could plug the fuck out of it..

[CosmicCowboy]

Seriously, this is way overspeculating at this point but it is a logical cause/effect.

[Wild Cobra]

Seriously, this is way overspeculating at this point but it is a logical cause/effect.
LOL...

OK, I will admit to a greater curiosity of these matters than most. After-all, I am a "Parts Changer."

[CosmicCowboy]

And West is a TINY town. They might have not even had an incorporated fire department. All I have heard of so far is Volunteers. A lot of VFD fire training incorporates alcohol as a main course.

[Wild Cobra]

Google pressure relief valve. It is a housing with an inlet and a discharge that has a seat and a corresponding stem/disc that is spring loaded to whatever pressure the valve is supposed to relieve at between the inlet and discharge. Ice could plug the fuck out of it..
I know what a pressure release valve is. We use them. I would think one should have been designed to keep the water out, unless all engineers over the decades managed to miss such a design flaw. When I was an engineering technician, we used labyrinth seals for such purposes. Allow airflow, but keep all forced liquids out.

add.

They weren't technically seals, just a labyrinth design.

[CosmicCowboy]

All i know is that chemically ammonia and water are big buddies. At the right temperature that is ice.

[TeyshaBlue]

And West is a TINY town. They might have not even had an incorporated fire department. All I have heard of so far is Volunteers. A lot of VFD fire training incorporates alcohol as a main course.

All they had was a VFD.

[Wild Cobra]

All they had was a VFD.
Ouch.

[boutons_deux]

under 3000 people

http://www.city-data.com/city/West-Texas.html

[boutons_deux]

but it has SIX STARBUCKS, one for every 500 people.

[Wild Cobra]

but it has SIX STARBUCKS, one for every 500 people.
Don't you know?

Caffeine and energy drinks are the fuel for young people these days.

I wonder what their life expectancy is, all those energy drinks...

[boutons_deux]

Don't you know?

Caffeine and energy drinks are the fuel for young people these days.

I wonder what their life expectancy is, all those energy drinks...

the 6 starbucks are primarily for IH35 traffic, not locals, otherwise nobody would ever stop in West.

there's not much caffeine in dark roast. like most phyto-nutrients, heat diminishes, kills it.

caffeine is widespread in the plant world.

[Wild Cobra]

the 6 starbucks are primarily for IH35 traffic, not locals, otherwise nobody would ever stop in West.

there's not much caffeine in dark roast. like most phyto-nutrients, heat diminishes, kills it.

caffeine is widespread in the plant world.
Yes, caffeine isn't so bad, but there is a large move to energy drinks. This is what I was speaking of when relating it to life expectancy. Not coffee.

[CosmicCowboy]

the 6 starbucks are primarily for IH35 traffic, not locals, otherwise nobody would ever stop in West.

there's not much caffeine in dark roast. like most phyto-nutrients, heat diminishes, kills it.

caffeine is widespread in the plant world.

Shows how out of touch and deprived your miserable life has been.

Czeck Stop rules!

[boutons_deux]

what free-market no-regulation looks like, just trust Corporate-Americans to regulate themselves so that Human-Americans and the planet are safe, healthy.




Safety rules limited for small fertilizer plants

There were no sprinklers. No firewalls. No water deluge systems. Safety inspections were rare at the fertilizer company in West, Texas, that exploded and killed at least 14 people this week.

This is not unusual.

Small fertilizer plants nationwide fall under the purview of several government agencies, each with a specific concern and none required to coordinate with others on what they have found.

The small distributors — there are as many of 1,150 in Texas alone — are part of a regulatory system that focuses on large installations and industries, though many of the small plants contain enough agricultural chemicals to fuel a major explosion. The plant in West had ammonium nitrate, the chemical used to build the bomb that blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people. They were also authorized to handle up to 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, a substance the Texas environmental agency (http://mobile.mysa.com/mysa/db_272451/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=SyQDd2nL&full=true#) considers flammable and potentially toxic.

"This type of facility is a minor source of air emissions," Ramiro Garcia, the head of enforcement and compliance at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, told The Associated Press.

"So the inspections are complaint driven. We usually look at more of the major facilities."

No federal agency determines how close a facility handling potentially dangerous substances can be to population centers, and in many states, including Texas, many of these decisions are left up to local zoning authorities. And in Texas, the state's minimal approach to zoning puts plants just yards away from schools (http://mobile.mysa.com/mysa/db_272451/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=SyQDd2nL&full=true#), houses and other populated areas, as was the case in West.

That plant received a special permit because it was located less than 3,000 feet from a school. The damage from the blast destroyed an apartment complex, nursing (http://mobile.mysa.com/mysa/db_272451/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=SyQDd2nL&full=true#) home and houses in a four-block area.

State and federal investigators have not yet determined the cause of the disaster, which occurred Wednesday night after a fire broke out at the site after work hours. The explosion that followed could be heard miles away and was so powerful it registered as a small earthquake.

The West Fertilizer Co. stored, distributed and blended fertilizers, including anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate, for use by farmers around the Central Texas community. The plant opened in 1962 outside the rural town of 2,800, but development gradually crept closer. An apartment complex, a nursing home and a middle school were built within a few blocks. Wednesday night, residents and rescue workers tried to evacuate the area as the fire consumed the plant.
Donald Adair, the plant's owner, said in a statement Friday, he was cooperating with the investigation, and expressed sympathy for the victims. He has not returned phone (http://mobile.mysa.com/mysa/db_272451/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=SyQDd2nL&full=true#) calls seeking comment.

Over the years, the fertilizer company was fined and cited for violations by federal and state agencies.

Last summer, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration assessed a $10,000 fine against West for improperly labeling storage tanks and preparing to transfer chemicals without a security plan. The company paid $5,250 after reporting it had corrected the problems.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also cited the plant for not having an up-to-date risk management (http://mobile.mysa.com/mysa/db_272451/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=SyQDd2nL&full=true#) plan. That problem was also resolved, and the company submitted a new plan in 2011. That plan, however, said the company did not believe it was storing or handling any flammable substances, and didn't list fire or an explosion as a danger.

David Gray, an EPA spokesman in Dallas, said the company's plan identified a worst-case scenario as an accidental release of all 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, which at room temperature is a gas.

"This scenario is a plausible worse-case scenario as gaseous anhydrous ammonia can be lethal," Gray said.

The risk management plan also did not cite a possible explosion of ammonium nitrate, the solid granular fertilizer stored at the site. But that would not be unusual, he said, because ammonium nitrate is not regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The plant's plan said there was no risk of fire or explosion, and noted they had no sprinklers, water deluge or other safety mechanisms installed.

"We do not yet know what happened at this facility. The ongoing investigation will inform us on the plan's adequacy," Gray said.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also dealt with the company, and issued a permit for handling anhydrous ammonia — which requires safety equipment the company had told the EPA it didn't have. But TCEQ acknowledged it may never have checked to confirm the equipment was there.

"It's a minor source under the Clean Air Act so it doesn't get much scrutiny at all," said Neil Carman, a Sierra Club clean air expert and chemist who used to work for the TCEQ.

The company's last contact with regulation may have come as recently as April 5, when the state Office of the State Chemist inspected the plant. But that agency focuses mostly on ensuring that commercial fertilizers are properly labeled and blended, said Roger Hoestenbach, the office's associate director. His inspectors found no problems, he said, but they would not have checked for safety systems such as sprinklers. That office also provided the company with the required license to store and handle ammonia nitrate, and renewed it in September after a summer inspection, he said.

Many other towns in Texas have small fertilizer distributors operating under similar regulations near populated areas.

Matt Murray, owner of ABC Fertilizer and Supply in Corsicana, bought his facility about 15 years ago. It sits in an industrial zone in the town of about 23,700 people, but in a community barely five miles long, it is still not far from the population center, he said.

"Every little community, town that's in Texas, has one of these," he said.

Murray's facility also has a state license to sell ammonium nitrate.

Even though Murray said he has discussed an evacuation plan with his local fire chief, there is nothing in writing. And he isn't required to have a formal plan. That may be changing now, he said.

"It's been something that's been brewing for years and years, ever since Oklahoma," he said.

http://mobile.mysa.com/mysa/db_272451/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=SyQDd2nL&full=true#

[The Reckoning]

death toll up to 14 with over 200 injured.

very sad occurence. so many nice people in that town.

more people dead and injured than the boston bombing.

national consensus seems to gravitate toward "i dont care. idiots shouldnt have built their homes next to a fertilizer plant."

human life only seems to matter whenever you have a political or moral agenda to push.

[boutons_deux]

"human life only seems to matter whenever you have a political or moral agenda to push."

bullshit. if people aren't directly affected, NIMBY, then they don't care beyond lip service and watching Tee Vee, forget quickly, 15 minutes max.

I'm sure the people around there didn't know they were living next to a huge bomb. The company surely did. and obviously regulatory agencies failed miserably. We'll see if RickyBobby passes new regulations for the 100+ similar explosive fert around TX.

[boutons_deux]

Texas fertilizer plant ‘was willfully off the grid’
The fertilizer plant in West, Texas that exploded on Wednesday ignored federal regulations in failing to report that it was storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate required to prompt oversight by the Department of Homeland Security (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/20/lawmaker-texas-fertilizer-plant-was-willfully-off-the-grid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29#) (DHS), Reuters reported on Saturday (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/20/17838304-red-flag-texas-plant-had-1350-times-amount-of-chemical-that-would-trigger-oversight?lite)

“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.”

Records from the Texas Department of State Health Services showed the facility stored 270 tons of ammonium nitrate as recently as last year. Homeland Security regulations require fertlizer plants to notify federal officials if they hold more than 400 pounds. But according to Reuters, neither state authorities nor officials at West Fertilizer shared their findings with DHS.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/20/lawmaker-texas-fertilizer-plant-was-willfully-off-the-grid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

what became striking to many Americans as the tragedy unfolded and the immense power of the blast came to be understood is why anyone allowed homes, a school and a nursing (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0420/Why-did-West-Texas-build-homes-and-a-school-next-to-a-time-bomb?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Scie nce+Monitor+%7C+All+Stories%29#) home to be built next to a plant that in large quantities stores derivatives of ammonia, one of the most explosive substances on the planet?


History certainly was no guide. After all, ammonia has been the key accelerant in some of the world's largest industrial accidents, including an explosion that killed hundreds in Toulouse (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Toulouse), France (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/France), in 2001, and a 1947 blast that killed nearly 600 people in Texas City (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Texas+City), Texas. The bomb assembled and planted by Timothy McVeigh (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Timothy+McVeigh) next to the Alfred P. Murrah Building (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Alfred+P.+Murrah+Federal+Building) in Oklahoma City (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Oklahoma+City) in 1995 was fueled primarily by ammonium nitrate.

A 2008 report by the Center for American Progress (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Center+for+American+Progress) called a Pasadena (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Pasadena), Texas, fertilizer plant one of the most dangerous chemical plants in the country, since an accident there could make more than 3 million people vulnerable to a major gas release.


what became striking to many Americans as the tragedy unfolded and the immense power of the blast came to be understood is why anyone allowed homes, a school and a nursing (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0420/Why-did-West-Texas-build-homes-and-a-school-next-to-a-time-bomb?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Scie nce+Monitor+%7C+All+Stories%29#) home to be built next to a plant that in large quantities stores derivatives of ammonia, one of the most explosive substances on the planet?


History certainly was no guide. After all, ammonia has been the key accelerant in some of the world's largest industrial accidents, including an explosion that killed hundreds in Toulouse (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Toulouse), France (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/France), in 2001, and a 1947 blast that killed nearly 600 people in Texas City (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Texas+City), Texas. The bomb assembled and planted by Timothy McVeigh (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Timothy+McVeigh) next to the Alfred P. Murrah Building (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Alfred+P.+Murrah+Federal+Building) in Oklahoma City (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Oklahoma+City) in 1995 was fueled primarily by ammonium nitrate.


A 2008 report by the Center for American Progress (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Center+for+American+Progress) called a Pasadena (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Pasadena), Texas, fertilizer plant one of the most dangerous chemical plants in the country, since an accident there could make more than 3 million people vulnerable to a major gas release.

the US (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/United+States) inspection protocol for such plants isn't the most intensive, in part because states are primarily responsible for inspections: The US Occupational Health and Safety Administration (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Occupational+Safety+and+Health+Administration), meanwhile, has inspected only six Texas fertilizer plants in the last five years.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0420/Why-did-West-Texas-build-homes-and-a-school-next-to-a-time-bomb

[Thread]

human life only seems to matter whenever you have a political or moral agenda to push.

Reckoning

[Jack Kevorkian]

Reckoning
Call the office

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Waco's a pretty backwards, horrible place. I kinda wish more people died tbh.

[Jack Kevorkian]

Waco's a pretty backwards, horrible place. I kinda wish more people died tbh.

Call the office

[boutons_deux]

I was right, corporate disregard for rules, regulations, safety, and legally failed to report its huge overstock of explosives.

Can't say anything about the specific behavior that night, but the behavior/attitude of the employees toward procedures and safety is the corporation's responsibility to emphasize, instill, and enforce.

And of course, TX and federal authorities didn't inspect and enforce.

Texas fertilizer company didn't heed rules before blast

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.

A U.S. congressman and several safety experts called into question on Friday whether incomplete disclosure or regulatory gridlock may have contributed to the disaster.

"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."

Company officials did not return repeated calls seeking comment on its handling of chemicals and reporting practices. Late on Friday, plant owner Donald Adair released a general statement expressing sorrow over the incident but saying West Fertilizer would have little further comment while it cooperated with investigators to try to determine what happened.

"This tragedy will continue to hurt deeply for generations to come," Adair said in the statement.

Failure to report significant volumes of hazardous chemicals at a site can lead the DHS to fine or shut down fertilizer operations, a person familiar with the agency's monitoring regime said. 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.

Firms are responsible for self reporting the volumes of ammonium nitrate and other volatile chemicals they hold to the DHS, which then helps measure plant risks and devise security and safety plans based on them.

Since the agency never received any so-called top-screen report from West Fertilizer, the facility was not regulated or monitored by the DHS under its CFAT standards, largely designed to prevent sabotage of sites and to keep chemicals from falling into criminal hands.

The DHS focuses "specifically on enhancing security to reduce the risk of terrorism at certain high-risk chemical facilities," said agency spokesman Peter Boogaard. "The West Fertilizer Co. facility in West, Texas is not currently regulated under the CFATS program."

The West Fertilizer facility was subject to other reporting, permitting and safety programs, spread across at least seven state and federal agencies, a patchwork of regulation that critics say makes it difficult to ensure thorough oversight.

An expert in chemical safety standards said the two major federal government programs that are supposed to ensure chemical safety in industry - led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) - do not regulate the handling or storage of ammonium nitrate. That task falls largely to the DHS and the local and state agencies that oversee emergency planning and response.

More than 4,000 sites nationwide are subject to the DHS program.

"This shows that the enforcement routine has to be more robust, on local, state and federal levels," said the expert, Sam Mannan, director of process safety center at Texas A&M University. "If information is not shared with agencies, which appears to have happened here, then the regulations won't work."

HODGEPODGE OF REGULATION

Chemical safety experts and local officials suspect this week's blast was caused when ammonium nitrate was set ablaze. Authorities suspect the disaster was an industrial accident, but haven't ruled out other possibilities.

The fertilizer is considered safe when stored properly, but can explode at high temperatures and when it reacts with other substances.

"I strongly believe that if the proper safeguards were in place, as are at thousands of (DHS) CFATS-regulated plants across the country, the loss of life and destruction could have been far less extensive," said Rep. Thompson.

A blaze was reported shortly before a massive explosion leveled dozens of homes and blew out an apartment building.

A Ryder truck packed with the substance mixed with fuel oil exploded to raze the Oklahoma federal building in 1995. Another liquid gas fertilizer kept on the West Fertilizer site, anhydrous ammonia, is subject to DHS reporting and can explode under extreme heat.

Wednesday's blast heightens concerns that regulations governing ammonium nitrate and other chemicals - present in at least 6,000 depots and plants in farming states across the country - are insufficient. The facilities serve farmers in rural areas that typically lack stringent land zoning controls, many of the facilities sit near residential areas.

Apart from the DHS, the West Fertilizer site was subject to a hodgepodge of regulation by the EPA, OSHA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Office of the Texas State Chemist.

But the material is exempt from some mainstays of U.S. chemicals safety programs. For instance, the EPA's Risk Management Program (RMP) requires companies to submit plans describing their handling and storage of certain hazardous chemicals. Ammonium nitrate is not among the chemicals that must be reported.

In its RMP filings, West Fertilizer reported on its storage of anhydrous ammonia and said that it did not expect a fire or explosion to affect the facility, even in a worst-case scenario. And it had not installed safeguards such as blast walls around the plant.

A separate EPA program, known as Tier II, requires reporting of ammonium nitrate and other hazardous chemicals stored above certain quantities. Tier II reports are submitted to local fire departments and emergency planning and response groups to help them plan for and respond to chemical disasters. In Texas, the reports are collected by the Department of State Health Services. Over the last seven years, according to reports West Fertilizer filed, 2012 was the only time the company stored ammonium nitrate at the facility.

It reported having 270 tons on site.

"That's just a god awful amount of ammonium nitrate," said Bryan Haywood, the owner of a hazardous chemical consulting firm in Milford, Ohio. "If they were doing that, I would hope they would have gotten outside help."

In response to a request from Reuters, Haywood, who has been a safety engineer for 17 years, reviewed West Fertilizer's Tier II sheets from the last six years. He said he found several items that should have triggered the attention of local emergency planning authorities - most notably the sudden appearance of a large amount of ammonium nitrate in 2012.

"As a former HAZMAT coordinator, that would have been a red flag for me," said Haywood, referring to hazardous materials.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/545/article/p2p-75556627/

[Galileo]

This was a false-flag inside job operation to instill fear.

[ChumpDumper]

This was a false-flag inside job operation to instill fear.

[Wild Cobra]

Really...

Who do you think they will blame?

I know...

Let's blame skynet. Skynet made one of our drones set it on fire! Right?

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol @ Boutons trying to make this about "corporate greed and unsafe conditions" just because a fertilizer plant didn't tell homeland security they had fertilizer....duh.

[CosmicCowboy]

The plant manufactured 5000 tons a year and they were just now getting into prime time planting/fertilizing season. There is nothing sinister about the amount they had on hand in inventory.

[boutons_deux]

The plant manufactured 5000 tons a year and they were just now getting into prime time planting/fertilizing season. There is nothing sinister about the amount they had on hand in inventory.

CC :lol they have WAY TOO MUCH in there, and were supposed to have reported it. They fucked up.

CC :lol defending Adair and its greed, putting profits over human safety.

[CosmicCowboy]

What is too much? You clearly don't know a fucking thing about agriculture or fertilize. That is something that is normally dealt with in huge bulk. The amount they had on hand was only enough to fertilize about 1000 acres...

[boutons_deux]

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/texas-fertilizer-plant-failed-to-disclose-massive-ammount

Adair broke the law, not reportig "national security" violations to DHS, etc, etc.

[boutons_deux]

The Department of Homeland Security requires fertilizer plants with at least 400 pounds of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate to report to it in order to trigger safety oversight. But the West, Texas, fertilizer plant that exploded Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and obliterating a small town in the process, reportedly had more than 1,350 times that amount—roughly 270 tons, according to Reuters.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/texas_plant_had_270_tons_of_explosives_was_not_bei ng_monitored_for_safety_2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig+Truthdig%3A+Drilling +Beneath+the+Headlines

[TeyshaBlue]

Reporting to DHS would have done exactly jack shit to prevent this accident. But please, continue to use the dead to push your idiotic agenda.

[TeyshaBlue]

Maybe you could hook up with SA210 and grab a couple of meme's, unless thinkprogress already has them posted.

[boutons_deux]

so it was Adair breaking the law

TX regulators :lol and fed reguators not enforcing even weak regulations

and I'm betting that employees, ex-employees will testify that saftey regs were absent or violated

Has hyper-"Christian" RickyBobby said anything other than his bullshit "prayers", if that?

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao

"national security violations"

:lmao

First time homeland security realized a fertilizer company would have fertilize was because of the fire...

[TeyshaBlue]

Read something besided your moonbat rss feed.

http://www.komonews.com/news/business/Safety-rules-limited-for-small-fertilizer-plants-203937561.html

[boutons_deux]

:lmao

"national security violations"

:lmao

First time homeland security realized a fertilizer company would have fertilize was because of the fire...

it's DHS that requires the reporting due to white bubba jobs like OKC bombing, aka, "national security"

[CosmicCowboy]

That report has nothing to do with the fire, freak. Every farmer in the country has more than 400#. That's just enough to fertilize one acre.

[coyotes_geek]

Reporting to DHS would have done exactly jack shit to prevent this accident.

Yep.

DHS safety monitoring is about what are you doing to keep someone from entering your facility and walking off enough ammonium nitrate to blow someone else up. It's not about what are you doing to keep from blowing yourself up. That's OSHA.

[boutons_deux]

This kind of NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER shit happens when Corporate-Americans are trusted, self-regulated, to do THE RIGHT THING.

govt/Corporate-Americans surveille/rape the shit out of Human-Americans' privacy, while allowing themselves, govt and Corporate-Americans, to operate in near total secrecy.

[CosmicCowboy]

This kind of NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER shit happens when Corporate-Americans are trusted, self-regulated, to do THE RIGHT THING.

govt/Corporate-Americans surveille/rape the shit out of Human-Americans' privacy, while allowing themselves, govt and Corporate-Americans, to operate in near total secrecy.

:lmao

freak

[TeyshaBlue]

This kind of NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER shit happens when Corporate-Americans are trusted, self-regulated, to do THE RIGHT THING.

govt/Corporate-Americans surveille/rape the shit out of Human-Americans' privacy, while allowing themselves, govt and Corporate-Americans, to operate in near total secrecy.

lol negligent manslaughter. Tell us, oh enlightened progressive, what was the exact cause of this accident? I was unaware that investigators had reached any conclusion on the cause of the incident. You apparently have inside information to formulate that proclamation.

Either that or you're just in moonbat, thinkprogress mode.

[boutons_deux]

lol negligent manslaughter. Tell us, oh enlightened progressive, what was the exact cause of this accident? I was unaware that investigators had reached any conclusion on the cause of the incident. You apparently have inside information to formulate that proclamation.

Either that or you're just in moonbat, thinkprogress mode.

I'm still betting, if the authorities go afer West/Adair, with the thoroughness that they're going after the bomber, they will find West/Adair guilty of negligence.

[boutons_deux]

:lol

Republicans Who Voted Against Sandy Aid Ask For Aid To West, Texas After Explosion


The death toll and injury count in the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion that took place last Wednesday continues to rise, with 35-40 dead (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-dead-west-texas-plant-explosion-20130418,0,3837625.story) and 60 still unaccounted for (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/295021-cornyn-60-people-unaccounted-for-in-west-texas-explosion). Recovering from the disaster will likely take a lot of time and resources, and President Obama has already pledged federal assistance (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/294729-obama-administration-ready-to-help-in-waco-texas) through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other agencies.
Some Texas Congressmen have also requested aid to help the victims and the town rebuild. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he is “working to ensure that all available resources are marshaled (http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/04/texas-sen-john-cornyn-will-visit-west-on-friday-sen-ted-cruz-calls-blast-horrific.html/) to deal with the horrific loss of life and suffering that we’ve seen.” Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) has said that he, plus Senators Cruz and John Cornyn (R-TX), are working with Congressional leaders to extend necessary assistance (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/294729-obama-administration-ready-to-help-in-waco-texas). Cornyn has also said there is funding under his subcommittee (http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/04/texas-sen-john-cornyn-addresses-west-plant-explosion.html/) for chemical site security standards and infrastructure protection.

Yet when Northeast cities needed disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a storm that killed hundreds, all three Congressmen voted against the aid package (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/19/ted-cruz-bill-flores-aid_n_3117356.html):

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz lambasted the Sandy Aid package, voting against (http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/ted-cruzs-perfect-record/) the measure in January. Cruz issued a statement (http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=339437) explaining that he voted against the aid because it included a number of spending measures that were not related to disaster relief, including “Smithsonian repairs, upgrades to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration airplanes, and more funding for Head Start.” […]
After Flores voted against the Sandy aid package, he justified his vote by saying the package (http://www.wacotrib.com/news/rep-flores-votes-against-sandy-aid-bill-laden-with-pork/article_3dd40562-9c0d-5502-8048-dd6ea62c34b4.html) was “too large” and did “more than meet the immediate needs of Sandy victims.”



On top of seeking funding for West, Texas, John Cornyn has also requested drought relief and disaster aid for wildfires (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/01/29/1510041/sandy-aid-republican-hypocrites/) in the past.

Funding would have also been useful in preventing the blast in the first place. The plant has been victim of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) underfunding, as it hadn’t been inspected since 1985 (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/19/1893601/update-last-inspection-of-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-was-in-1985/). Yet Flores voted for (http://flores.house.gov/press-releases/flores-votes-for-gop-budget-the-path-to-prosperity/) the 2011 House Republican budget, which would have reduced OSHA by $99 million (http://www.npr.org/2011/03/01/134177079/GOP-Looks-To-Make-Cuts-At-OSHA), and also voted to pass (http://flores.house.gov/press-releases/flores-votes-for-budget-control-act-to-cut-spending-avoid-default/) the Budget Control Act, which has also decreased funding for OSHA’s inspections.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1901031/republicans-who-voted-against-sandy-aid-ask-for-aid-to-west-texas-after-explosion/ (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1901031/republicans-who-voted-against-sandy-aid-ask-for-aid-to-west-texas-after-explosion/)

[TeyshaBlue]

Oh, ok. So you don't know. Got it.

I'm pretty much going to wait and see what they find before I make up my mind.

Enjoy.

[boutons_deux]

Oh, ok. So you don't know. Got it.

I'm pretty much going to wait and see what they find before I make up my mind.

Enjoy.

I'm BETTING that the past (unregulated, self-regulated, we-don't-GAF-about-anything-but-profits Corporate-American behavior) is a good predictor of the future. We may see how many $100Ks Adair pays his legal team.

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm still betting, if the authorities go afer West/Adair, with the thoroughness that they're going after the bomber, they will find West/Adair guilty of negligence.

Since no apparent crime has been committed they hardly have the motive to expend the same energy they did on the marathon bombers.

[CosmicCowboy]

LOL Boutons and thinkprogress

[The Reckoning]

Obama visiting West on Thursday.

good political move.

[The Reckoning]

well, waco for the funeral.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/04/west-explosion-president-obama-to-attend-waco-memorial-service-thursday-with-first-lady.html/

[boutons_deux]

Since no apparent crime has been committed they hardly have the motive to expend the same energy they did on the marathon bombers.

there could be $Ms if federal penalties, and then there are the civil suits. Adair could go tits up.

[CosmicCowboy]

there good be $Ms if federal penalties, and then there are the civil suits. Adair could go tits up.

Sounds like Boutons is aroused at the thought of a business going bankrupt.

[boutons_deux]

Sounds like Boutons is aroused at the thought of a business going bankrupt.

sounds like CC :lol doesn't GAF if a business blows up a town.

[coyotes_geek]

Sounds like Boutons is aroused at the thought of a business going bankrupt.

Always a good day for boutons when people in a red state die and/or lose their jobs.

[CosmicCowboy]

sounds like CC :lol doesn't GAF if a business blows up a town.

Of course I do and I already donated to the relief effort. However, a tragedy like this is no reason for you to jerk off in the Forum and spew your anti-business jism everywhere.

[TeyshaBlue]

there could be $Ms if federal penalties, and then there are the civil suits. Adair could go tits up.

Or, alternately, it could be ruled an accident and nothing would happen other than routine insurance claims. That would just ruin your little day.

[boutons_deux]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/28755/large/West-texas-map.jpg?1366392955

[TeyshaBlue]

Of course I do and I already donated to the relief effort. However, a tragedy like this is no reason for you to jerk off in the Forum and spew your anti-business jism everywhere.

Of course it is. He's a good little moonbat sychophant.

[TeyshaBlue]

this bbs is fucked up. double post.

[TeyshaBlue]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/28755/large/West-texas-map.jpg?1366392955

Guess what buildings were there first.

[boutons_deux]

podunk berg's cowboy/farmer zoning laws

and did Adair warn the people they were building, living next to bomb storage facility?

[boutons_deux]

Of course I do and I already donated to the relief effort. However, a tragedy like this is no reason for you to jerk off in the Forum and spew your anti-business jism everywhere.

CC :lol so tender-hearted.

when Corporate-Americans quit shitting and pissing on Human Americans, I'll have reason to STFU.

Until then, I'll post whatever the fuck I want wherever.

[TeyshaBlue]

podunk berg's cowboy/farmer zoning laws

and did Adair warn the people they were building, living next to bomb storage facility?
:lolbomb storage facility
lol simpleton.

[TeyshaBlue]

Until then, I'll post whatever the fuck I want wherever.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/teyshablue/vaderfail.jpg (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/teyshablue/media/vaderfail.jpg.html)

Nobody can corral your rampant stupidity. Congrats.

[boutons_deux]

"Lax zoning laws meant that the West plant received a special permit to be located less than 3,000 feet from a school. That school was forced to evacuate (http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/18/exploded-fertilizer-plant-had-prior-regulatory-issues/) due to a “concerning fire” at the plant in February of this year.


Even with all of the evidence that the plant fell through a variety of regulatory cracks, an industry-backed bill with ties to the Koch brothers with the support of 11 Congressmen would reduce the EPA’s powers (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/how-chemical-lobby%E2%80%99s-friends-congress-fought-keep-regulators-its-back) to regulate major chemical sites"

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1904381/how-the-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-slipped-through-the-regulatory-cracks/

My guess is Adair bought off the West zoning person.

[coyotes_geek]

"Lax zoning laws meant that the West plant received a special permit to be located less than 3,000 feet from a school. That school was forced to evacuate (http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/18/exploded-fertilizer-plant-had-prior-regulatory-issues/) due to a “concerning fire” at the plant in February of this year.


Even with all of the evidence that the plant fell through a variety of regulatory cracks, an industry-backed bill with ties to the Koch brothers with the support of 11 Congressmen would reduce the EPA’s powers (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/how-chemical-lobby%E2%80%99s-friends-congress-fought-keep-regulators-its-back) to regulate major chemical sites"

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1904381/how-the-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-slipped-through-the-regulatory-cracks/

My guess is Adair bought off the West zoning person.


Guess what buildings were there first.

lol boutons.

[xrayzebra]

How much do you think Obama will collect on his trip down to Texas? He wont have time to visit West, he has to get back to D.C. for the big Planned Parenthood Gala. Damn, wished we had some crooks to catch, he would visit the area and handle that
while he was down here. Oh, Well. Guess he is worn out trying to find the Benghazi terrorist and working on the Boston thing.

I see the resident communist is still on here. Hi, boutons, you idiot.

[xrayzebra]

Also surprises me, no one is accusing the government of blowing up Boston or West, Texas. Guess I just have to be patient.

[TeyshaBlue]

"Lax zoning laws meant that the West plant received a special permit to be located less than 3,000 feet from a school. That school was forced to evacuate due to a “concerning fire” at the plant in February of this year.


Even with all of the evidence that the plant fell through a variety of regulatory cracks, an industry-backed bill with ties to the Koch brothers with the support of 11 Congressmen would reduce the EPA’s powers to regulate major chemical sites"

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...latory-cracks/

My guess is Adair bought off the West zoning person.

Stupid fuck. The "plant" (even though it's not a plant) was built in 1962, well before the schools.

lol your "guess"
lol thinkprogress

[TeyshaBlue]

...

[ChumpDumper]

How much do you think Obama will collect on his trip down to Texas? He wont have time to visit West, he has to get back to D.C. for the big Planned Parenthood Gala. Damn, wished we had some crooks to catch, he would visit the area and handle that
while he was down here. Oh, Well. Guess he is worn out trying to find the Benghazi terrorist and working on the Boston thing.:lol it's all about Obama with you.


Also surprises me, no one is accusing the government of blowing up Boston or West, Texas. Guess I just have to be patient.It's been done.

[boutons_deux]

Stupid fuck. The "plant" (even though it's not a plant) was built in 1962, well before the schools.

lol thinkprogress

So that's your excuse zoning authorities permitting civilian installation next to a bomb storage facility.

TB :lol CC :lol

[Drachen]

Also surprises me, no one is accusing the government of blowing up Boston or West, Texas. Guess I just have to be patient.

You haven't been on the site in a few days have you?

[TeyshaBlue]

So that's your excuse zoning authorities permitting civilian installation next to a bomb storage facility.

TB :lol CC :lol

lol simpleton.
It's not a bomb storage facility, fucktard.

[TeyshaBlue]

CS monitor has a clue.

Course, it's not on your moonbat RSS feed.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0420/Why-did-West-Texas-build-homes-and-a-school-next-to-a-time-bomb/(page)/3

[TeyshaBlue]

""That plant was part of our town and what happened is part of living in a farming town," Kucera says. "You accept a certain level of risk, just as people living in cities do."

But even if town planners in West (who do have a land use plan filed with the state) wanted to mandate a buffer around the West Fertilizer Company plant, they may not have been financially able to do so, suggests Mr. Bland at UNT.

Texas law, to be sure, gives local zoning authorities broad powers to set land use rules, but the US Supreme Court has also ruled that landowners can petition governments for remuneration if zoning decisions negative affect property values.

"So, in West, it would have made sense to zone [the land around the plant] as open space, but can a little town like West, never mind a big city like Atlanta, have the resources to pay landowners for their losses?" says Mr. Bland, at UNT.

Moreover, Bland says, zoning officials may have had to stand on their own if they wanted to mandate a buffer around the plant.

"Oftentimes the strongest opponents to zoning and land use control are local residents, who anticipate benefiting from investment in various types of land – it's a no good deed goes unpunished kind of thing," he says. "All of that means it's very difficult to put into place the sort of policies that will provide optimum level of protection, which in hindsight should have been done here."

[TeyshaBlue]

Fuck boutons. You couldn't be less relevant if you tried.

[CosmicCowboy]

A little more about the evil Mr. Adair Boutons wants to crucify.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/fertilizer-plant-owner-longtime-fixtures-in-a-smal/nXRh2/


By Jeremy Schwartz
American-Statesman Staff
For half a century, West Fertilizer Co has been a fixture in the town of West, a place where generations of area farmers have gotten custom mixes of nitrate, potash and phosphorus to feed their fields and keep their hay pastures green.
Similar to scores of other small- to medium-sized fertilizer blenders and distributors across the state, it has played a vital role in the farming life of a wide swath of McLennan County.
Before the plant exploded Wednesday evening shortly after closing time, 13 employees worked there. They produced about 5,000 tons of fertilizer a year for local farmers, often custom blended for specific soil types and times of year, according to state records.
“There’s no question that business has done a lot for that town,” said Gary Payne, owner of Brazos Feed and Supply in nearby Waco, who first shopped at the plant in the 1980s when he worked as a hay baler. “In agriculture, you got to have fertilizer, and that was the backbone of that area. In small rural places like that, that’s what it’s like.”
Similarly prominent is the company’s owner, West patriarch Donald Adair, 83, whose family also owns an adjacent grain and farming business. Adair, who bought the fertilizer plant less than a decade ago, was born and raised in West, where several of his children still live.
“The man is devastated by what’s happened,” said West resident Len Martin, who attends the West Church of Christ, where Adair has long served as an elder. “This is just a very hard thing. There are no absolute answers, no easy words to make it go away.”
Adair was attending Bible study when fire broke out at his plant Wednesday evening, according to the Church of Christ’s official organ, the Christian Chronicle.
Martin said Adair is a deeply faithful man who had earned a strong reputation in town.
“I have not heard of anyone in the community who didn’t have respect for the man,” Martin said. “The man has honesty and integrity.”
Adair could not be reached for comment, but by Friday afternoon he had hired a Dallas public relations representative and released a statement.
“As a lifelong resident, my heart is broken with grief for the tragic losses to so many families in our community,” Adair wrote. “My family and I can’t express enough our deep appreciation for the loving service and selfless sacrifice from within and around our community responding to the urgent needs of those affected. I am proud to be associated with West Church of Christ, which has opened its doors to the State of Texas to provide grief counseling services. My family and I will continue to assist in relief efforts through our church family.”
West Fertilizer began as Texas Grain and was founded in 1958 by the Plasek family, according to court documents in a civil case brought by Adair against the Monsanto Co. in 2007. In 1960, the fledgling company “built a small fertilizer blend plant for farmers in the area and started selling fertilizer and grain storage services for other farmers in Texas,” according to the records.
“The town grew up and around that fertilizer plant,” Payne said. “It’s a staple. That’s how agriculture works.”

[Wild Cobra]

:lol @ Boutons trying to make this about "corporate greed and unsafe conditions" just because a fertilizer plant didn't tell homeland security they had fertilizer....duh.
I'll bet the regulation was made, and never told to the facility there was a new regulation. It's not like they tried to hide it since they told the state authorities.

[Wild Cobra]

Reporting to DHS would have done exactly jack shit to prevent this accident. But please, continue to use the dead to push your idiotic agenda.
This is what he will base his conspiracy theory on.

[boutons_deux]

A little more about the evil Mr. Adair Boutons wants to crucify.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/fertilizer-plant-owner-longtime-fixtures-in-a-smal/nXRh2/

yeah, yeah, I've already seen Adair's crocodile-tear saturated bullshit.

It's his fucking tons of explosives, so he's accountable, so fuck him and his crocodile tears.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol simpleton.

[coyotes_geek]

A little more about the evil Mr. Adair Boutons wants to crucify.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/fertilizer-plant-owner-longtime-fixtures-in-a-smal/nXRh2/

I'm just not feeling it with the small business, community oriented theme. Doesn't fit the evil corporation mold, i.e. not a good enough story. From now on West Fertilizer Co is to be thought of as a subsidiary of Halliburton specializing in plutonium based fertilizer products.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'm just not feeling it with the small business, community oriented theme. Doesn't fit the evil corporation mold, i.e. not a good enough story. From now on West Fertilizer Co is to be thought of as a subsidiary of Halliburton specializing in plutonium based fertilizer products.

*Insert thinkprogress talking point here.*
*Marans! Bubbas! Cow Fellators!*

[Drachen]

*Insert thinkprogress talking point here.*
*Marans! Bubbas! Cow Fellators!*

Good God, TB. has BD actually said this?

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Cow Fellators!*

bestiality! :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

Good God, TB. has BD actually said this?

Only a matter of time, tbh.

[TeyshaBlue]

bestiality! :lol

I'm a conservative. It only seemed natural.:lol

[boutons_deux]

a corp doesn't have to be a powerful MegaCorp to prefer profits to human and environmental health and safety.

I'm still betting that it will be found that Adair was profoundly guilty of ignoring the risk of his tons of explosives, while hiding the danger, at least never talking about the danger, from the vicinity.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'm sure that's what thinkprogress has told you to think.

[boutons_deux]

I'm sure that's what thinkprogress has told you to think.

TB :lol one-note musical man

[cdcast]

Nice articles TB and CC but it still doesn't change this:

1. no full inspection in 28 years.
2. plant had an insane amount of ammonium nitrate, way above the safety standards.

Both sides (govt. and plant owner) are at fault here.

[TeyshaBlue]

TB :lol one-note musical man

Boutons..one trick pony.

[boutons_deux]

anybody holding their breath for Abbot to open a judicial/environment inquiry? :lol

I see where he and RickyBobby are all over it with high profile comments! :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

Nice articles TB and CC but it still doesn't change this:

1. no full inspection in 28 years.
2. plant had an insane amount of ammonium nitrate, way above the safety standards.

Both sides (govt. and plant owner) are at fault here.

Most likely.
There's a patchwork of Fed and State agencies that had no idea what the other is doing. That's an all too common problem.

[boutons_deux]

Most likely.
There's a patchwork of Fed and State agencies that had no idea what the other is doing. That's an all too common problem.

Adair and his company had a very good idea of what they were doing. It all starts with them.

[TeyshaBlue]

Adair and his company had a very good idea of what they were doing. It all starts with them.

Sounds like the entire town had a very good idea of what they were doing and accepted the risk.

[TeyshaBlue]

"That plant was part of our town and what happened is part of living in a farming town," Kucera says. "You accept a certain level of risk, just as people living in cities do."

That quote was from one of the links you couldn't be bothered to read.

[CosmicCowboy]

Nice articles TB and CC but it still doesn't change this:

1. no full inspection in 28 years.
2. plant had an insane amount of ammonium nitrate, way above the safety standards.

Both sides (govt. and plant owner) are at fault here.

Exactly how did they have "inventory way above the safety standards"?

Please link what the "safety standard" is.

This time of year that probably wasn't even a weeks sales.

[boutons_deux]

"That plant was part of our town and what happened is part of living in a farming town," Kucera says. "You accept a certain level of risk, just as people living in cities do."

That quote was from one of the links you couldn't be bothered to read.

I read the CSM link the day it was published, and before you posted the link. CSM is on my RSS reader.

I wonder how many West-erners NOW believe the wasted lives and destruction was worth the benefits?

In cities, zoning codes and ENFORCEMENT reduce the risks of being killed by corporate explosives and other corporate activities.

The risk of living next to man-made TONS of explosives is not the same as the risk of natural disasters.

anyway, what the victims think now or earlier is beside the point.

Now it's all about Adair's highly probable criminal negligence and TX's/Feds regulatory failures.

[TeyshaBlue]

I read the CSM link the day it was published, and before you posted the link. CSM is on my RSS reader.
Yeah, whatever.


I wonder how many West-erners NOW believe the wasted lives and destruction was worth the benefits?

In cities, zoning codes and ENFORCEMENT reduce the risks of being killed by corporate explosives and other corporate activities.

The risk of living next to man-made TONS of explosives is not the same as the risk of natural disasters.

anyway, what the victims think now or earlier is beside the point. Not really.


Now it's all about Adair's highly probable criminal negligence and TX's/Feds regulatory failures.

lol highly probable.
lol boutons

[coyotes_geek]

The risk of living next to man-made TONS of explosives is not the same as the risk of natural disasters.


This is true. Natural disasters pose a much bigger risk to human life than industrial accidents do.

[cdcast]

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

[TeyshaBlue]

Welcome to page 3 of this thread.

DHS regulations wouldn't have changed a damned thing.

[boutons_deux]

when a corp ignores regulations (for profit), and the regulator doesn't regulate (TX Repug hate-govt ideology), you get a dead people and a devastated village.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol simpleton

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

*yawn*

Homeland Security doesn't oversee plant safety.

[boutons_deux]

*yawn*

Homeland Security doesn't oversee plant safety.

anybody holding over 400 pounds of explosive fertilizer is required to report to DHS (after the bubbas blew up OKC federa l building)

[CosmicCowboy]

big whoop. they didn't file a report. Any idiot knows a fertilizer plant has more than 400 pounds.

[coyotes_geek]

big whoop. they didn't file a report. Any idiot knows a fertilizer plant has more than 400 pounds.

Amonium nitrate weighs 50 lbs/cf. You can fit 400 pounds of it in ONE of these.

http://i21.geccdn.net/site/images/n-picgroup/30038293.jpg

[CosmicCowboy]

It takes 400 pounds just for a farmer to fertilize 1 acre.

[boutons_deux]

yeah, ok, dead people and a devastated village is just the cost of living in the country, got it. Sorry I disagreed.

[TeyshaBlue]

yeah, ok, dead people and a devastated village is just the cost of living in the country, got it. Sorry I disagreed.

You, of course, don't get it. Never will. No, per usual, you managed to barrage us with your talking point nonsense at the expense of the recent dead. Nothing new.

[boutons_deux]

You, of course, don't get it. Never will. No, per usual, you managed to barrage us with your talking point nonsense at the expense of the recent dead. Nothing new.

TB :lol never getting pass your cowardice about gracing us with the deep, original, insightful, devastating views and retorts. COWARD!

[TeyshaBlue]

lol simpleton. When I lay down knowledge, you run like the little bitch you are.

[TeyshaBlue]

Here was your first post in this thread:


So what was the cause?

mgmt not training kids?

absence of a culture of safety, the typical BigOil style?

simple stupidity?

old equipment being run until it broke, the typical BigOil style?


BigAg is not worker friendly place, toxic chemicals causing cancer, etc, powerful machinery, pissed-off bubbas with guns, etc.


Again, just a collection of your idiotic thinkprogress approved buzzwords when, prior to your lunatic entrance, posts were respectful of the dead. You just use them as props.

lol coward.

[boutons_deux]

Here was your first post in this thread:



Again, just a collection of your idiotic thinkprogress approved buzzwords when, prior to your lunatic entrance, posts were respectful of the dead. You just use them as props.

lol coward.

TB :lol my post was exactly to the point, listing the Usual Suspects of corps chasing profits over human and environmental health and safety. Your posts typically are NOTHING BUT BOUTONS STALKING

[TeyshaBlue]

TB :lol my post was exactly to the point, listing the Usual Suspects of corps chasing profits over human and environmental health and safety. Your posts typically are NOTHING BUT BOUTONS STALKING

Except, in the absence of facts, you substituted your own lunacy as facts.

Mocking =/= stalking. lol Get over yourself, coward.

[boutons_deux]

Except, in the absence of facts, you substituted your own lunacy as facts.

Mocking =/= stalking. lol Get over yourself, coward.

TB :lol always with dickless, empty posts, what a coward. I know you're crazy about me, and you I'm not crazy, but I do bitch slap you crazy

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao @ Bouton's lunacy thinking he bitch slaps anyone...:lol

[coyotes_geek]

:tu


PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech Republic plans to donate 4 million koruna (some $200,000) to help the Texas town of West recover from a devastating fertilizer plant explosion.

The government decided to the provide aid in solidarity because a significant number of people in the town of 2,700 have Czech roots. The blast damaged numerous homes in the town.

The Foreign Ministry says Czech Ambassador to the U.S. Petr Gandalovic visited West last week and talked to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, West Mayor Tommy Muska and other officials about how to help.

A ministry statement Wednesday said the money will go toward repairing property in the town.

Thousands of Czechs, mostly from the eastern part known of Moravia, settled in Texas more than 100 years ago.

link (http://news.yahoo.com/czechs-send-funds-blast-hit-texas-town-181551812.html)

[TeyshaBlue]

TB :lol always with dickless, empty posts, what a coward. I know you're crazy about me, and you I'm not crazy, but I do bitch slap you crazy

Anyone provide a translation?

Btw...got an example of anytime you've ever popped me? Nope.

I've got plenty where I've bitch slapped you into oblivion. Gonna dodge this one too?

[TeyshaBlue]

:tu

:tu +1

[Wild Cobra]

Welcome to page 3 of this thread.

DHS regulations wouldn't have changed a damned thing.
Page 3?

I'm only on page two...

Anyway, I agree. The way I see it, the reporting if so authorities know where a bomb maker may have gotten material. It would never prevent such an accident.

But then remember... It's ShazBot...

[boutons_deux]

my bet that Adair will be guilty of safety violations (but no prosecution) is based on what Nader calls "two tier justice system"

Boston, Texas and Corporate Criminal Justice


One reason -- our two tier criminal justice system. One tier for individuals. Another for corporations.

Case in point -- the April 2010 Massey Energy Upper Big Branch coal mine disaster (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/massey-energy-company/) that killed 29 miners in West Virginia. In December 2011, the Department of Labor found that Massey's "unlawful policies and practices" were the "root cause of this tragedy." But in the same month, the Justice Department said it would not criminally prosecute the company. Instead, the Justice Department entered into a "non prosecution agreement" with Massey.

David Uhlmann is the former head of the Justice Department's Environmental Crimes Section.

He was disturbed by Justice Department's failure to criminally prosecute Massey. He says he would have criminally charged the company. After all, he says, he has charged many a major corporate criminal for far less human damage. Uhlmann, currently a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, says that the Massey non prosecution agreement is part of an expanding pattern.

"The deal with Massey continues a disturbing trend whereby corporations can avoid criminal prosecution by entering deferred prosecution or non-prosecution agreements," Uhlmann wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?_r=0) in December 2011. "They create the appearance that justice can be bought."

Instead of securing guilty pleas in clear cut cases of corporate criminality, the Justice Department caves to the demands of corporate criminal defense attorneys and enters into deferred and non-prosecution agreements.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/304-justice/17118-boston-texas-and-corporate-criminal-justice-

[boutons_deux]

What Went Wrong in West, Texas — and Where Were the Regulators?


Has Congress introduced any new regulation legislation?
Yes, but it would roll back regulations rather than strengthen them. Eleven representatives — one Democrat and 10 Republicans — sponsored (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/how-chemical-lobby%E2%80%99s-friends-congress-fought-keep-regulators-its-back?utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer:%20@Publici%20on%20twitter&buffer_share=8d6e4) a bill (http://pompeo.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pompeogdcbackgroundinfo.pdf) in February that would limit the EPA’s regulatory authority over fertilizer plants.

http://www.propublica.org/article/what-went-wrong-in-west-texas-and-where-were-the-regulators

:lol

[CosmicCowboy]

What Went Wrong in West, Texas — and Where Were the Regulators?


Has Congress introduced any new regulation legislation?
Yes, but it would roll back regulations rather than strengthen them. Eleven representatives — one Democrat and 10 Republicans — sponsored (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/how-chemical-lobby%E2%80%99s-friends-congress-fought-keep-regulators-its-back?utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer:%20@Publici%20on%20twitter&buffer_share=8d6e4) a bill (http://pompeo.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pompeogdcbackgroundinfo.pdf) in February that would limit the EPA’s regulatory authority over fertilizer plants.

http://www.propublica.org/article/what-went-wrong-in-west-texas-and-where-were-the-regulators

:lol





Again, EPA doesn't regulate safety, Boutox.

[boutons_deux]

Again, EPA doesn't regulate safety, Boutox.

DHS must be informed about 400+ pounds of explosive fert, Adair didn't comply, and you approve.

[Homeland Security]

*yawn*

Homeland Security doesn't oversee plant safety.
Yeah, I lost clearance for that.

[CosmicCowboy]

DHS must be informed about 400+ pounds of explosive fert, Adair didn't comply, and you approve.

You are like a broken record bitch. The 400# rule is ignored by everyone. It's ridiculous and unenforceable. Farmers but this shit by the hundreds of tons and nobody notifies homeland security. Fuck. The home depot by your house has more than 400# of amonium nitrate.

[TeyshaBlue]

DHS must be informed about 400+ pounds of explosive fert, Adair didn't comply, and you approve.
Still wouldn't have changed a fucking thing. It's a reporting violation, not a safety violation. DHS isn't worried about anything but how much you have. Period.

[Wild Cobra]

Again, EPA doesn't regulate safety, Boutox.
Next, ShazBot will want the government to regulate earthquakes, making them illegal, so we have no more earthquakes.

[boutons_deux]

Next, ShazBot will want the government to regulate earthquakes, making them illegal, so we have no more earthquakes.

regulation failed
unregualted Adair's company failed to work safely
people dead
town destroyed

all y'all right-wingers still hate regulation, and think companies are sacred, faultless, and that valuing profits over people is The Right Way.

[Th'Pusher]

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51669040#51669040

[The Reckoning]

heard from my friend in west. theyre rebuilding as we speak, and i think a glass company is replacing all of the windows that were blown out for free.

it's nice to see texans come together to support each other.

[TeyshaBlue]

Anyone provide a translation?

Btw...got an example of anytime you've ever popped me? Nope.

I've got plenty where I've bitch slapped you into oblivion. Gonna dodge this one too?

Yeah. That's what I thought.

[boutons_deux]

Yeah. That's what I thought.

TB :lol coward

[TeyshaBlue]

:cryI don't have an example.:cry

[boutons_deux]

Yet there is at least one agency that is responsible for inspecting such plants, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which the Dallas Morning News says (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/west-explosion/headlines/20130423-how-deep-did-safety-checks-at-west-fertilizer-go.ece) “has by far the longest reach of any Texas regulatory agency and issues permits for many agricultural companies.” The TCEQ inspected the plant in 2006 after a complaint of a strong ammonia smell. While there, it found that the company’s “grandfathered” status expired in 2004 and cited it for failing to get a permit, which it later obtained.

This very agency had been targeted by Texas lawmakers before the explosion (http://www.edf.org/blog/2013/04/25/west-explosion-not-enough-protections-or-not-enough-oversight), as Elena Craft writes at EDF:

[S]ome legislators have recommended this legislative session that state environmental laws be weakened. (http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/environmental-bills-make-rounds-at-legislature/nWs6N/) This is in addition to recent budget cuts at the state environmental agency; the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s (TCEQ) budget was recently cut by $305 million (http://www.chron.com/news/kilday-hart/article/Scope-of-threat-in-West-a-surprise-to-feds-4450243.php), which reduced the agency by 235 full-time employees.


The bill that would weaken the TCEQ was introduced by state Sen. Troy Fraser (R) and state Rep. Allan Ritter (R) and would make it harder for citizens to contest permits (http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/environmental-bills-make-rounds-at-legislature/nWs6N/) under consideration. One of the few full accountings (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1904381/how-the-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-slipped-through-the-regulatory-cracks/) of what chemicals the plant was storing and in what volumes was with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which is meant to provide the community with information about what facilities are storing in their areas.

The fact that the plant was able to store such high volumes of hazardous chemicals without regular safety inspections or, reportedly, having sprinklers or fire walls (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57580428/12-bodies-recovered-in-texas-fertilizer-plant-blast/) has led many environmental groups to argue for more and stronger regulations. Yet a spokesperson for an industry group, The Fertilizer Institute, :lol has already stated that there is “a very rigorous regulatory structure in place (http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/business/294907-fertilizer-industry-worries-explosion-will-lead-to-new-regs) right now” :lol :lol and worried that “someone may react quickly and perhaps try to change things or impose new regulation on top of existing regulation that’s already effective.” :lol

Gov. Rick Perry has joined this perspective, saying that calls for increased regulation are “premature (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-26/texas-town-s-blast-crater-shows-risk-from-patchwork-zoning-laws.html)” and he remains comfortable with the level of oversight in Texas (http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/04/22/4793839/perry-state-oversight-not-to-blame.html).

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/26/1926071/texas-lawmakers-targeted-regulatory-agency-before-explosion/

TX to Human-Americans: Fuck all y'all whiners. Business rules, y'all get polluted and killed. STFU

[CosmicCowboy]

LOL thinkprogress

[RandomGuy]

Lets not turn a sad event like this into a right or left issue.

I would prefer not to, but one has to ask questions about inspections and other things.

One of those important questions we need to ask is:

"When does being zealous about being "business friendly" turn into ignoring potentially lethal busines practices?"

I have direct personal knowledge of at least one case of state regulators being told to back off a company that is, quite possibly, breaking some serious laws. I can only speculate that this was either because the company was connected or the governor was afraid of seeming to take the side of "big government" over "free market".

There is a point where these things should be politicized, and when people die that seems like we owe it to the dead and people working in similar conditions to at least ask questions.

[RandomGuy]

A little more about the evil Mr. Adair Boutons wants to crucify.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/fertilizer-plant-owner-longtime-fixtures-in-a-smal/nXRh2/

Good intentions, honesty, and integrity, are all well and good.

15 people are dead.

What about competence?

I am not out to lionize or demonize, but we still need to know what happened, and whether there are other bombs waiting to go off.

It seems to me we need to do a bit less talking past each other and tryign to agree on what shoudl be done to prevent future incidents.

Quite frankly, if I were an insurance company or a bank, I would be looking at maps to find out where my exposure is, at the moment.

[CosmicCowboy]

WEST, Texas (Reuters) - A rail car filled with extremely hazardous ammonium nitrate did not cause the fiery explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant, investigators said on Tuesday, in their first statement ruling out possible sources of the deadly blast six days ago.
Fourteen people died in the explosion at the West Fertilizer Co last Wednesday, and some 200 were injured.
Investigators said they also ruled out a weather event such as lightning as the cause of the fire and blast, and said they had narrowed down the possible sources to an accident, arson or an unexplained cause.
The repercussions of the blast increased on Tuesday, as the McLennan County district court said at least two lawsuits had been filed against the company's parent, Adair Grain. They were filed by a displaced resident of the town, and insurance companies representing businesses damaged by the blast.
Until Tuesday, investigators had been extremely tight-lipped about what might have caused the explosion and inferno that wiped out parts of the town of West, Texas.
Attention had focused on the presence at the plant of large quantities of ammonium nitrate, a dry fertilizer mixed with other ingredients and applied to crops.
Ammonium nitrate also is a possible ingredient in a bomb and was used by Timothy McVeigh in 1995 to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
West Fertilizer disclosed to a Texas state agency that it had 270 tons of ammonium nitrate on hand at the plant last year. There also had been persistent rumors that a rail car delivered to the plant by Union Pacific full of ammonium nitrate might have caught on fire and caused the blast.
But Kelly Kistner, assistant Texas state fire chief, ruled out the rail car of ammonium nitrate as the cause.
"What I can tell you today is that railcar that there's been questions about, that was full of ammonium nitrate, is not the cause of the fire or cause of the explosion. It is a victim of that explosion," said Kistner.
Union Pacific had confirmed that it delivered a rail car to the plant on April 15, two days before the blast, but declined to detail what was inside.
A spokeswoman for Union Pacific, Raquel Espinoza, said the railroad did not own the rail car or its contents.
"Photographs taken after the incident show the rail car lying on its side, largely intact, with no evidence of it being directly involved in the explosion or fire," she said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Tuesday.
"The car was knocked over by the explosion, resulting in some of its cargo being spilled. There are no visible signs of the cargo being burnt. Most of the cargo appears to have remained inside the rail car," Espinoza said.
The statement by Kistner on Tuesday did not completely eliminate ammonium nitrate as a possible cause of the blast because investigators have not commented on the stocks of ammonium nitrate other than the material in the rail car.
More than 70 state and federal agents are going through the scene "shovel by shovel," looking for the initial heat source, Kistner said.
The lawsuits, the first of what are expected to be many against the parent company of West Fertilizer, Adair Grain, accused the company of negligence. The plant is owned by Donald Adair, a longtime farmer in the area who bought it in 2004. Adair also owns the grain business and farms some 5,000 acres of cropland and pasture in the area.
A spokesman for Adair said the company declined to comment on the lawsuits.
Funerals for the dead were set to begin in the small farming town of 2,700 people on the Interstate highway between Austin and Dallas known for its Czech heritage.
A 31-year Dallas Fire Department Captain, Kenneth "Luckey" Harris Jr., 52, who was killed when he rushed to the scene of the blast to help, will be remembered on Wednesday at St. Mary's Catholic Church of the Assumption.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.industrynet.com/search.asp?headers=FE0420&header=FERTILIZERS&region=TX

26 companies or so in texas selling fertilizer.

Insured losses up to $100 million in Texas fertilizer plant blast
http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20130424/NEWS04/130429914

Texas Dept of Insurance coordinating insurance response:
http://www.tdi.texas.gov/news/resource.html

Still can't find a map of plants. That would be handy.

How many other plants have gone decades without a safety inspection? You can bet your ass that a lot of workers comp companies are going to be taking a hard look at their clients.

[RandomGuy]

LOL thinkprogress

What do you think is a reasonable amount of oversight for what amounts to chemical plants handling such materials?

I would prefer inspections every 5 years or so, with some standards for making things safer. If it puts some dangerous facilities out of business, that is acceptable to me.

[boutons_deux]

Thousands Of Chemical Facilities Pose A Risk To Populations Greater Than West, Texas (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/30/1940111/chemical-facilities-risk-greater-west-texas/)


West, Texas, where a fertilizer plant exploded two weeks ago and killed 15 while injuring more than 160 people, is a small town of just 2,800 people. There are thousands of other chemical facilities around the country that pose a risk to far larger populations.


In a November memo prepared for Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), the Congressional Research Service reviewed all of the chemical facilities that submit risk management plans to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Facilities that process 140 specific chemicals above certain thresholds are required to submit plans. Each facility must calculate the population that lives within a certain radius around it that would be affected by a “worse-case scenario release from a single chemical process,” as it states, as determined by EPA criteria. Given weather effects, demographics, and potential precautions taken by each facility, the report says “it is unlikely that this entire population would be affected by any single chemical release, even if it is a result of a worst-case accident.”


Yet nearly 7,000 facilities – 6,985 to be exact – report that they post a risk to populations greater than 1,000, with 90 that could impact more than 1 million people in a worst-case scenario. 4,425 would likely impact a population similar to the town of West, or between 1,000 and 9,999 people.


Even worse, West Fertilizer Co. wasn’t included in these numbers, as it had told the EPA that it didn’t pose a risk of fire or explosion. It claimed that the worst-case scenario was a 10-minute release of ammonia gas or a leak from a broken hose, neither of which would harm anyone.


A 2008 report from the Center for American Progress looked at how to make the nation’s 101 most dangerous chemical facilities, which could impact populations above 1 million, less dangerous by converting them to safer and more secure substances and technologies. For plants that manufacture ammonia fertilizer, the report suggested reducing the amount of ammonia they store by using liquid nitrogen and dry urea fertilizers, which “do not post the emergency gas release hazards of anhydrous ammonia.”


Yet a 2009 bill to tighten security standards for chemical factories, fertilizer depots, and water-treatment plants was met by a $51 million lobbying campaign by big business. Two large lobbying forces, the Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau, labeled it a “key vote” for the year. The bill passed the House but then died in the Senate.


The industry has given $34 million to political candidates in the last three elections, two-thirds of whom were Republicans, and two fertilizer industry groups have spent $17.3 million on lobbying since 1998 with stated opposition to EPA regulation of fertilizer safety. The industry has already made statements in opposition to new regulations after the explosion in Texas.


Texas lawmakers have also recently sought to weaken the state environmental agency that oversaw the West plant and reduced its budget by $305 million. Governor Rick Perry (R) has also indicated that he isn’t interested in new safety regulations. Meanwhile, members have Congress have recently worked to advance a bill that would weaken the EPA’s powers to regulate major chemical plants.


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/30/1940111/chemical-facilities-risk-greater-west-texas/

[CosmicCowboy]

What do you think is a reasonable amount of oversight for what amounts to chemical plants handling such materials?

I would prefer inspections every 5 years or so, with some standards for making things safer. If it puts some dangerous facilities out of business, that is acceptable to me.

My insurance company sends an inspector around every year to inspect the premises and discuss safety programs. If he sees anything he doesn't like we discuss it and I fix it. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is OSHA coming in and finding some nit-picky little thing and fining me. I think it is absolutely impossible to have a clean OSHA inspection. The rules are just too vast and chicken shit. You have a commercial national brand hand cleaner in the bathroom for your employees to use? Better have an MSDS on file. I got popped for $500 on that one once.

[Wild Cobra]

Yes, if an insurance company signs off on a business, that should be good. They have a vested interest for things not to go wrong.

[coyotes_geek]

State and federal officials continue combing through 14.9 acres surrounding the blast site, likening the investigation to an “archaeological dig,” and hope to determine the cause by May 10.

[RandomGuy]

My insurance company sends an inspector around every year to inspect the premises and discuss safety programs. If he sees anything he doesn't like we discuss it and I fix it. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is OSHA coming in and finding some nit-picky little thing and fining me. I think it is absolutely impossible to have a clean OSHA inspection. The rules are just too vast and chicken shit. You have a commercial national brand hand cleaner in the bathroom for your employees to use? Better have an MSDS on file. I got popped for $500 on that one once.

I would agree.

The problem is that the company in question didn't have enough insurance to begin with, if our Insurance Commissioner is to be believed. (her remarks to that effect are floating around somewhere)

If you rely on that, what if the amount of the policy is too low for a company to bother with sending inspectors?

I would think it would have to be a mix between private and government efforts.

[boutons_deux]

Yes, if an insurance company signs off on a business, that should be good. They have a vested interest for things not to go wrong.

if the policy payout is low and/or capped, a pro forma amount to meet some requirement for insurance totally unrelated to the risks, the insurance company doesn't GAF about inspection. Like if you borrow $1000, your banker doesn't GAF. If you borrow $10M, he's your friend.

[Wild Cobra]

I would agree.

The problem is that the company in question didn't have enough insurance to begin with, if our Insurance Commissioner is to be believed. (her remarks to that effect are floating around somewhere)

If you rely on that, what if the amount of the policy is too low for a company to bother with sending inspectors?

I would think it would have to be a mix between private and government efforts.
What is enough insurance?

Last year, my ex wife was a pedestrian and hit by a car. Broke her ankle, they put steel plates in both her fibula and tibia. Last week, they took the plates back out because they bothered the hell out of her, and she couldn't walk right. It's to bee seen if she will ever walk right again. Even though the driver has a $250,000 coverage, she had to go though a lawyer to money to pay for the seriously large medical bills and lost wages to date. Still not settled.

The minimum $50k policy would cover this injury.

It happens all the time. People and businesses both, often get smaller policies than what may occur.

[ChumpDumper]

What is enough insurance?

Last year, my ex wife was a pedestrian and hit by a car. Broke her ankle, they put steel plates in both her fibula and tibia. Last week, they took the plates back out because they bothered the hell out of her, and she couldn't walk right. It's to bee seen if she will ever walk right again. Even though the driver has a $250,000 coverage, she had to go though a lawyer to money to pay for the seriously large medical bills and lost wages to date. Still not settled.

The minimum $50k policy would cover this injury.

It happens all the time. People and businesses both, often get smaller policies than what may occur.Right. That's the definition of not having enough insurance.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

What is enough insurance?

Last year, my ex wife was a pedestrian and hit by a car. Broke her ankle, they put steel plates in both her fibula and tibia. Last week, they took the plates back out because they bothered the hell out of her, and she couldn't walk right. It's to bee seen if she will ever walk right again. Even though the driver has a $250,000 coverage, she had to go though a lawyer to money to pay for the seriously large medical bills and lost wages to date. Still not settled.

The minimum $50k policy would cover this injury.

It happens all the time. People and businesses both, often get smaller policies than what may occur.

You determine how much liability coverage one needs based on your net worth.

[boutons_deux]

West Fertilizer was insured for only $1 million, a fraction of estimated losses
“A million dollars is a pathetic amount for this type of dangerous activity,” lawyer Randy C. Roberts said.
“If you want to drive a truck down the interstate, you’ve got to have $750,000 in coverage, even if you’re just carrying eggs,” Roberts said. “But if you want to put this ammonium nitrate into this town next to that school and that nursing home and those houses, you’re not required to carry insurance.”


Property damage alone in West could reach $100 million, according to the Insurance Council of Texas, an industry association. The April 17 explosion destroyed an apartment complex and seriously damaged a nursing home and a school. Several hundred homes also sustained damage, with some leveled to the foundation.

An attorney for United States Fire Insurance Co. of Morristown, N.J., confirmed Friday that West Fertilizer had $1 million in liability coverage “with no excess or umbrella coverage.”

Fertilizer facilities like the one in West are not required to have liability insurance that would compensate for damage they might cause, state insurance officials say, even if hazardous material is on hand.

West Fertilizer had reported having 270 tons of ammonium nitrate on site as of the end of last year. Outside experts have said it appears the chemical exploded during a fire on company property.

The office of state Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman issued a written statement late Friday saying the Texas Department of Insurance “does not have actual knowledge of the existence of or details regarding any liability insurance coverage” of the West facility.


http://www.dallasnews.com/news/west-explosion/headlines/20130503-west-fertilizer-was-insured-for-only-1-million-a-fraction-of-estimated-losses.ece

another corp taking huge risks, making the $Ms, while Human-Americans pay with their lives and homes.

[RandomGuy]

An attorney for United States Fire Insurance Co. of Morristown, N.J., confirmed Friday that West Fertilizer had $1 million in liability coverage “with no excess or umbrella coverage.”

Fertilizer facilities like the one in West are not required to have liability insurance that would compensate for damage they might cause, state insurance officials say, even if hazardous material is on hand.
West Fertilizer had reported having 270 tons of ammonium nitrate on site as of the end of last year. Outside experts have said it appears the chemical exploded during a fire on company property.

The office of state Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman issued a written statement late Friday saying the Texas Department of Insurance “does not have actual knowledge of the existence of or details regarding any liability insurance coverage” of the West facility.


http://www.dallasnews.com/news/west-explosion/headlines/20130503-west-fertilizer-was-insured-for-only-1-million-a-fraction-of-estimated-losses.ece

another corp taking huge risks, making the $Ms, while Human-Americans pay with their lives and homes.

That amounts to a subsidy of the company involved.

The subsidy is paid when Bad Things happen, and is paid for by those who can least afford to pay, quite often with their lives.

Libertarians find this acceptable.

[CosmicCowboy]

My little chickenshit company carries 2 and 2.

[coyotes_geek]

Yeah that low of coverage is BS. I think it's a safe bet that we'll see our state leg come up with some kind of legislation about that.

[TeyshaBlue]

Well, this is weird.


EMS volunteer arrested on possession of destructive device charge

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/former-ems-volunteer-arrested-on-possession-of-destructive-device-charge-firefighter-explosion-206912431.html

[boutons_deux]

After Plant Explosion, Texas Remains Wary of Regulationhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/10/us/ALT-TEXAS-1/ALT-TEXAS-1-articleLarge-v2.jpg

Five days after an explosion at a fertilizer plant leveled a wide swath of this town, Gov. Rick Perry tried to woo Illinois business officials by trumpeting his state’s low taxes and limited regulations. Asked about the disaster, Mr. Perry responded that more government intervention and increased spending on safety inspections would not have prevented what has become one of the nation’s worst industrial accidents in decades.

“Through their elected officials,” he said, Texans “clearly send the message of their comfort with the amount of oversight.”

This antipathy toward regulations is shared by many residents here. Politicians and economists credit the stance with helping attract jobs and investment to Texas, which has one of the fastest-growing economies in the country, and with winning the state a year-after-year ranking as the nation’s most business friendly.

Even in West, last month’s devastating blast did little to shake local skepticism of government regulations. Tommy Muska, the mayor, echoed Governor Perry in the view that tougher zoning or fire safety rules would not have saved his town. “Monday morning quarterbacking,” he said.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/us/after-plant-explosion-texas-remains-wary-of-regulation.html?from=homepage

limiting, destroying govt has real consequences for the 99%, while the 1% pocket all the profits.

[CosmicCowboy]

Well, this is weird.


EMS volunteer arrested on possession of destructive device charge

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/former-ems-volunteer-arrested-on-possession-of-destructive-device-charge-firefighter-explosion-206912431.html

Yeah, I saw that. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Wouldn't be the first cop/fireman/ems tried to create a situation they could be a hero in.

[Th'Pusher]

A white right-wing terrorist if we're lucky, tbh.

[boutons_deux]

Texas launches criminal probe into plant explosion

Texas law enforcement officials on Friday launched a criminal investigation into the massive fertilizer plant explosion that killed 14 people last month.

Investigators have largely treated the West Fertilizer Co. blast that killed 14 people as an industrial accident, but the Texas Department of Public Safety said in statement that the agency has now instructed the Texas Rangers and the McLennan County
Sheriff's Department to conduct a criminal probe.

"This disaster has severely impacted the community of West, and we want to ensure that no stone goes unturned and that all the facts related to this incident are uncovered," DPS Director Steven McCraw said.

The plant blew up on the night of April 17 after a fire erupted at the facility in the rural town.

McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said residents "must have confidence that this incident has been looked at from every angle and professionally handled — they deserve nothing less."

http://mobile.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_41685/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Fas8MtMZ&full=true#display

probe? aka WHITEWASH!

[TeyshaBlue]

lol simpleton.

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

"The Texas Rangers are now assisting the McLennan County Sheriff's Department with a criminal investigation into the cause of the fatal explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. "

:facepalm

[boutons_deux]

"The Texas Rangers are now assisting the McLennan County Sheriff's Department with a criminal investigation into the cause of the fatal explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. "

:facepalm

RickyBobby certainly has his grimy, corrupt hands all over the law enforcement lackeys. it will be "An Act Of Our Lord Jesus Christ and Savior", nobody will be held accountable.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol non sequitur theater.

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol

[boutons_deux]

Victims In Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion May Still Have To Pay Property Taxes (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/10/1995211/victims-in-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-may-still-have-to-pay-property-taxes/)

West, Texas continues to be rocked by the aftermath of the fertilizer plant explosion last month. Victims are now discovering they may still have to pay property taxes (http://www.wacotrib.com/news/mclennan_county/west-blast-victims-may-not-get-property-tax-relief/article_f65c7020-1709-5aec-84eb-16c6d73d63b1.html#.UY0Q7T9UDeI.twitter) on their destroyed homes. While these homeowners can file protests until the end of May, the law requires property values to be determined on January 1 of the tax year. Local governments are allowed to reappraise homes after natural disasters, but the fertilizer plant explosion was very much a man-made calamity.

Even the mayor, Tommy Muska, has filed to protest the property value of his home, which is so badly damaged from the blast that it may cost $300,000 to repair. However, the mayor noted, granting victims relief is a “double-edged sword,” as the town will flounder from the millions of lost tax dollars. The magnitude of the explosion, which claimed 15 lives and injured 160 others, also devastated a huge chunk of West’s much-needed revenue for many years to come:

Hahn estimated that West lost at least $29 million in taxable value as a result of the blast, not counting damage to nontaxable property such as schools, water tanks and infrastructure.

That amount represents more than one-fifth of West’s tax base of $140.4 million, according to preliminary values. Hahn said losing that much revenue this year would hobble the finances of the city and West Independent School District when they need the money the most.



Whatever the appraisal district decides, either the victims or the town will take a debilitating hit. Victims cannot count on West Fertilizer Co. for compensation, either. The plant was only insured for $1 million (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/west-explosion/headlines/20130503-west-fertilizer-was-insured-for-only-1-million-a-fraction-of-estimated-losses.ece) of damages, a negligible sum that does not even begin to cover the actual losses. Property damage alone is projected to reach $100 million. Even so, the company was not required to carry any liability insurance at all. Many states, including Texas, do not impose any legal requirements for companies to have liability insurance. This latest revelation is just one of the myriad regulatory failures (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1904381/how-the-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-slipped-through-the-regulatory-cracks/) that led to the deadly explosion.

On Friday, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers launched a criminal investigation (http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/mclennan-county-sheriffs-office-texas-rangers-open-criminal-investigation-into-west-plant-explosion.html/) into the explosion. Some victims are also pursuing civil lawsuits against the company.


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/10/1995211/victims-in-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-may-still-have-to-pay-property-taxes/

[Wild Cobra]

Wow...

Besides the pipe bombs, he has the makings for thermite.

link: Complaint Against Bryce Reed (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/10/us/reed-complaint.html?_r=0)

[boutons_deux]

Texas Helpless to Prevent Another Fertilizer Plant Explosion

Given that about 150 Texas businesses similarly house massive amounts of highly explosive fertilizer, Texas fire departments have taken it upon themselves to help prevent a similar disaster from happening again. However, some businesses are refusing to consent to an inspection and — unfortunately — the law is on the businesses’ side. (http://www.mbtmag.com/news/2013/08/fire-marshal-inspections-refused-west-blast)

Although the precise cause of the West plant’s explosion has still not been determined, that hasn’t dissuaded local fire officials from being proactive in verifying that other such facilities aren’t a danger. Thus far, State Fire Marshal Chris Connealy and staff have tried to examine around 60 businesses with large fertilizer supplies, but nearly 10% of such operations have flat out refused the inspection.

Connealy expresses concern over the lack of cooperation, but overly generously concedes, “They may have a very good reason.”

We may never know the businesses’ reasons, however, since they can legally deny entry to the state fire marshal. Shockingly, Texas has no state fire codes, thus preventing officials from making such an inspection. If that doesn’t sound awful enough, Texas actually prohibits 70% of its counties from having fire codes (http://idmn.dallasnews.com/local-and-state/20130526-texas-bans-fire-codes-in-70-of-its-counties.ece). The wisdom — to use the term lightly — behind that decision is that maintaining fire codes is expensive.

As Firehouse points out (http://www.firehouse.com/news/11141856/texas-drivers-not-chemical-plants-required-to-have-liability-insurance), it is mandatory for every motorist to obtain liability insurance, but facilities that house tons of explosive materials like the plant in West are not required to have liability policies. In fact, the only insurance the company had was a basic $1 million policy, hardly sufficient to cover the estimate $135 million in damage.

If the plants are denying entrance to the fire marshal while waiting for the “proper” authorities to arrive, they better not hold their collective breaths. While there are federal government officials that can legally inspect these plants, a lack of funds prevents such examinations from occurring on even a semi-regular basis.

If you’ll recall (http://www.care2.com/causes/why-im-more-afraid-of-terrorism-than-actual-terrorism.html), the last time West’s facilities were checked was six years before the blast. Although it was found to have major safety violations, instead of being re-inspected, the business was instead fined $2,300.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/texas-helpless-to-prevent-another-fertilizer-plant-explosion.html#ixzz2eKOqwfuk

[benefactor]

Yup...there was some hillbilly on the news here recently that owns a plant that was trying to give all kinds of justification for him not letting the fire marshal on his property. Guess a couple of more neighborhoods will have to be flattened before the good ole boys decide it's important to inspect these places.