Fertilizer Plant explosion near Waco

[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 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 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/opini...minal-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 a bill in February that would limit the EPA’s regulatory authority over fertilizer plants.

http://www.propublica.org/article/wh...the-regulators

[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 a bill in February that would limit the EPA’s regulatory authority over fertilizer plants.

http://www.propublica.org/article/wh...the-regulators

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 . The 400# rule is ignored by everyone. It's ridiculous and unenforceable. Farmers but this by the hundreds of tons and nobody notifies homeland security. . 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 ing 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 slapped you into oblivion. Gonna dodge this one too?

Yeah. That's what I thought.

[boutons_deux]

Yeah. That's what I thought.

TB coward

[TeyshaBlue]

I don't have an example.

[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 “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, as Elena Craft writes at EDF:

[S]ome legislators have recommended this legislative session that state environmental laws be weakened. 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, 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 under consideration. One of the few full accountings 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 has led many environmental groups to argue for more and stronger regulations. Yet a spokesperson for an industry group, The Fertilizer Ins ute, has already stated that there is “a very rigorous regulatory structure in place right now” 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.”

Gov. Rick Perry has joined this perspective, saying that calls for increased regulation are “premature” and he remains comfortable with the level of oversight in Texas.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...ore-explosion/

TX to Human-Americans: 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/l...-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 quan ies 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.as...ZERS&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/art...WS04/130429914

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


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/201...er-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 . 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.