Reply With Quote
LOL...
OK, I will admit to a greater curiosity of these matters than most. After-all, I am a "Parts Changer."
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."
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.
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.
All i know is that chemically ammonia and water are big buddies. At the right temperature that is ice.
All they had was a VFD.
under 3000 people
http://www.city-data.com/city/West-Texas.html
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...
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.
Shows how out of touch and deprived your miserable life has been.
Czeck Stop rules!
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 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, 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 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 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 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_27245...2nL&full=true#
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.
"human life only seems to matter whenever you have a political or moral agenda to push."
bull . 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.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 04-21-2013 at 09:33 AM.
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 (DHS), Reuters reported on Saturday
“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/2013/04/2...e+Raw+Story%29
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 home to be built next to a plant that in large quan ies 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, France, in 2001, and a 1947 blast that killed nearly 600 people in Texas City, Texas. The bomb assembled and planted by Timothy McVeigh next to the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 was fueled primarily by ammonium nitrate.
A 2008 report by the Center for American Progress called a 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 home to be built next to a plant that in large quan ies 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, France, in 2001, and a 1947 blast that killed nearly 600 people in Texas City, Texas. The bomb assembled and planted by Timothy McVeigh next to the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 was fueled primarily by ammonium nitrate.
A 2008 report by the Center for American Progress called a 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 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, meanwhile, has inspected only six Texas fertilizer plants in the last five years.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/04...to-a-time-bomb
Reckoning
Call the office
Waco's a pretty backwards, horrible place. I kinda wish more people died tbh.
Call the office
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/at ude 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 quan ies. 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/#sectio.../p2p-75556627/
This was a false-flag inside job operation to instill fear.
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