Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:24:48 -0400
Reply-To: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
Sender: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: Ralph Stuart <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: Chemical Safety headlines from Google

Links to details available at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas< /div>

BREAKING: CHEMICAL IRRITANT RELEASED IN HAND COLLEGE, STUDENTS QUARANTINED, http://thinksb.com/2010/09/breaking-ch emical-irritant-released-in-hand-college-students-quarantined/< /div>

Residents in Hand College were jarred Sunday night by the release of a chemical irritant on the third floor of the Tabler Quad dormitory.

Shortly before 7pm, residents began to report feeling sick in Hand College, and began evacuating the building. Early rumors suggested that the cause was pepper spray that someone tried to microwave, but the latest reports suggest that the irritant was perhaps tear gas. Several residents were seen throwing up, according to Hand College resident Mark Ihde, who was on the balcony of his room when the first rumors came in.

=93Hazmat was on the scene, and told people they can=92t go back in,=94 he said. =93Residents who were exposed were quarantined off behind yellow police tape.=94

If reports of tear gas are accurate-police have not yet confirmed the cause of the evacuation-the immediate question would become where this student acquired tear gas. It can be manufactured using simple every day products, but there are no answers at this time as to whether the chemical was in the process of being created, or whether it was made elsewhere and simply released, perhaps accidentally, on campus.

As of 10:00pm, residents in Hand were being allowed to return to their rooms after Hazmat gave the all-clear, though Ihde said that third floor residents were still being kept out until the exact details become clear.

-----------------------

CTV BRITISH COLUMBIA - EVACUATED TOWER RESIDENTS NOT GOING HOME TODAY - CTV NEWS, http://www.ctvbc .ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100919/bc_chemical_evacuation_100919/20 100919?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

Residents of an evacuated 21-storey tower in downtown Vancouver could be locked out for several more days after potentially dangerous chemicals were released inside the building.

Trouble at the Electra Building began on Friday after a urethane foam product that was being used to raise the buildings concrete floor had an unexpected chemical reaction. Fire and Rescue personnel evacuated the building for a few hours before determining the fumes coming from the foam were not harmful.

Fire and Hazmat teams returned on Saturday, however, forcing a second evacuation as they reassessed the toxicity of the fumes.

-----------------------

INHALED BLEACH POSSIBLE CAUSE OF SLOATSBURG MAN'S DEATH | LOHUD.COM | THE JOURNAL NEWS, http://www.lohud. com/article/20100919/NEWS03/9190411/-1/newsfront/Inhaled-bleach-possible-c ause-of-Sloatsburg-man-s-death

SLOATSBURG: Ramapo police are investigating the death of a 50-year-old village man who may have accidentally inhaled bleach while cleaning his porch Saturday.

Sgt. Mark Briggs said the man, whose name has not been released, was found in his yard about 9 a.m. He appeared to have collapsed while cleaning an outdoor deck and was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, where later died.

The county hazmat team was and detectives were investigating the death because of the household cleaning products he was using.

"It's more of a precautionary measure" Briggs said. Fire officials said the man might have accidentally inhaled the bleach un-mixed while using it with a liquid sprayer.

-----------------------

NOXIOUS FUMES CLOSE NELSON AT HORNBY SECOND DAY IN A ROW, http://www.vancouversun.c om/Chemical+spill+causes+traffic+mayhem+downtown+Vancouver/3545385/story.h tml?tab=PHOT

VANCOUVER =97 A residential tower at the corner of Burrard and Nelson Street in downtown Vancouver was evacuated for the second time in as many days Saturday due to a mysterious chemical spill.

"We don't know if it's harmful. That's what we're trying to determine," said Rod MacDonald, battalion chief for the Vancouver Fire Department.

Three major streets in the downtown core =97 Hornby, Nelson, and Burrard =97 were closed Saturday morning as fire crews once again felt the need to assess smoke and fumes being expelled from the basement of the building.

On Friday, the fire department determined renovation crews used too much urethane foam product to raise the concrete floor and it somehow caught fire or became overheated thus causing a black smoke to pour out of the doors in the 900-block of Nelson.

-----------------------

MYSTERY FIRE AT CHEMICAL PLANT - NEWS - LEP.CO.UK, http://www.lep.co.uk/news/mystery_fire_at_chemical_plant_1_1551106

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of a blaze at a chemical plant near Preston.

Around 30 firefighters were drafted in to tackle the fire at Chemical Innovations Limited (CIL), on Walton Summit business park, at around 5.15am yesterday after reports of an unknown chemical going up in flames.

The fire was quickly brought under control but Operation Merlin, the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service=92s multi-agency plan for dealing with hazardous substances, was declared and police and decontamination experts were drafted in to assist with the ordeal.

Four fire engines from across the region were kept on site and roads in the area were closed by police for a number of hours amid concerns the blaze could re-ignite.

-----------------------

FIRE SMOLDERS FOR HOURS INSIDE COTTON BALER | INSIDE, BALER, SMOLDERS - LOCAL - BROWNSVILLE HERALD, http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/inside-116935-baler-smolders. html

HARLINGEN =97 Firefighters worked for hours to control a fire that ignited inside a cotton baler late Thursday, fighting the blaze into early Friday morning.

A worker at the Valco chemical plant, near the corner of Wilson Road and T Street, told officials he saw a cotton baler erupt into flames at the site after hearing a loud pop, Harlingen Fire Marshal Danny Warner said. The fire, Warner said, broke out sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. Thursday.

-----------------------

DEMOLITION WORKERS SPARK DONNA CHEMICAL FIRE | WORKERS, CHEMICAL, DEMOLITION - NOW - THEMONITOR.COM, http://www.themonitor.com/articles/workers-42863-chemical-demolit ion.html

Demolition workers accidentally started a fire at an old chemical manufacturing plant Friday morning.

The facility, on the 700 block of South 11th Street in Donna, is used to manufacture napthalene, a chemical used for dry cleaning solutions, Mid-Valley emergency coordinator George Garrett said. The workers, contracted by the City of Donna, were demolishing the building when the chemicals inside caught fire.

=93Fortunately there was no explosion,=94 he said. =93It was a highly voliatile chemical. The Donna Fire Department was able to put it out very quickly using foam.=94

-----------------------

DUPONT'S EXPLOSIVE STORY OF INNOVATION - THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER, http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID =/20100918/BUSINESS/709189920/1005

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE // At the height of America=92s coal-powered industrial age, DuPont was a large US industrial enterprise run entirely on renewable energy.

The reason? Back in the 19th century, the profits that fuelled what was then a family-owned business came from making gunpowder.

The mills where DuPont gunpowder was mixed and refined from charcoal and the imported minerals potassium nitrate and sulphur, and the magazines that stored the powder, had to be kept strictly away from flames and sparks.

At DuPont=92s water-powered mill complex at Hagley, on the Brandywine River in the US state of Delaware, the safety rules were correspondingly strict. =93All kind of play or disorderly fun is prohibited=94, read a notice that the company=92s French immigrant founder EI du Pont de Nemours posted on New Year=92s Day, 1811. He banned alcohol from the site in 1818 after an explosion killed 40 people and injured his wife Sophie. The accident was attributed to a DuPont foreman=92s drinking.

-----------------------

STATE INSPECTORS INVESTIGATING TOXIC CHEMICAL SPILL, http://www.krgv.com/news/loc al/story/State-Inspectors-Investigating-Toxic-Chemical/abMhrVuL90-FZ53zq1X tRw.cspx

DONNA - State inspectors are taking a closer look at an old manufacturing plant in Hidalgo County. A toxic chemical is leaking out of an old Silo and neighbors always worried about the site.

The sight of these old Silo's makes Debra Cano nervous. "I've always thought that they were dangerous," she said. "I've got kids and I plan to live here for years. I don't want anything to happen to my kids."

After 24 years her quiet fears are front and center.

A fire erupted during demolition at the old manufacturing plant Friday morning. A chemical used in dry cleaning called naphtha started leaking. Nearly a foot of the toxic chemical was left inside one of the silo's.

-----------------------

BOTTLES CONTAINING LIQUID RESIDUE EXPLODE, INJURE MAN, http://www.santamariatimes.com /news/local/crime-and-courts/article_37b5253e-c2f2-11df-a7a2-001cc4c002e0. html

If a coke bottle has something other than soda in it, and a lithium battery strip has been added, don=92t touch it, San Luis Obispo County sheriff=92s officials warned Friday.
A maintenance man for the Rancho Del Arroyo mobile home park in Oceano learned this the hard way Friday morning when he picked up three bottles that had some liquid residue inside, sheriff=92s officials said.
He tossed them into his ATV and drove off at about 11:30 a.m., but within seconds one of the bottles exploded and sprayed the man with liquid, burning his clothes and possibly his skin, said sheriff=92s representative Rob Bryn.
The mobile home park is in the 2700 block of Cienaga Street.
The maintenance man, who was not identified, assumed a bomb had gone off, Bryn said.
He was able to get out of the vehicle before a second bottle exploded, but complained of pain after being decontaminated and checked by emergency personnel, Bryn added.
Investigators believe the juice and soda bottles were discarded from a methamphetamine lab.

-----------------------

A CHEMICAL INCIDENT CAUSES AN EVACUATION IN VANCOUVER - NEWS1130, http://www.news1130.com/news/local /article/103484--a-chemical-incident-causes-an-evacuation-in-vancouver

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - A building had to be evacuated in Vancouver over a chemical incident that is also causing some traffic closures in the Downtown area. 

Firefighters were initially called out to a reported hazmat incident at Hornby and Nelson, but ran into a huge amount of smoke when they got there. It appears construction crews working in the basement of the old B.C. Hydro building may have used too much industrial cleaner trying to raise up a floor, creating a nasty, toxic smoke.

People are asked to stay away from the area, because the chemical is an irritant. Fire crews say they hope to have the incident cleaned up in a couple of hours.

-----------------------

SCIENCE EXPERIMENT ENGULFS STUDENT IN FLAMES - THESTAR.COM, http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/863 014--science-lab-explosion-sends-student-to-hospital

A 17-year-old boy suffered second-degree burns after a teacher=92s biology class demonstration exploded into a two-metre ball of flames.

Daniel Macandog was sitting near the front of a science lab, where teacher Andrew McGreal was conducting an experiment for his Grade 11 biology class at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute on Friday morning.

Students say McGreal put a cup of alcohol in an empty water cooler jug, and then lit a small stick and placed in the opening. When nothing happened, he added more alcohol, swished it around, and stuck the flame back inside.

Immediately a huge flame shot out of the jug =93like a blowtorch,=94 said 17-year-old Ashley Dembinski, who was sitting next to Macandog, about two metres from the experiment. Her jeans caught on fire, but she managed to pat out the flames.

=93It just came shooting right out,=94 she said. =93It hit (Macandog) and he completely caught on fire.=94

Covered in flames, Macandog panicked.

-----------------------

ACID SPILL SCARE: SUBSTANCE NEUTRALIZED, RIVER NOT IMPACTED, http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4513500

Sept. 17--The San Marcos Fire Department's hazardous materials team responded to a chemical leak that originated on the Texas State University campus Thursday morning.

Officials discovered around 7 a.m. that approximately 450 gallons of sulfuric acid used to clean equipment leaked from the university's physical plant on Sessom Drive.

They said that although a retention basin in place collected the majority of the acid, a "small amount" escaped.

Response crews washed the spilled chemical into nearby storm drains near the intersection of North LBJ Drive and Sessom Drive and used soda ash to render the acid inert, officials said.

Texas State spokesperson Jayme Blaschke said that while the drainage ultimately empties into the San Marcos River, the spill there was contained and a pumper truck removed the chemicals.

-----------------------

EMERGENCY CREWS WORK TO CONTAIN CHEMICAL SPILL - ABC NEWS (AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION), http:// www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/17/3014640.htm

Country Fire Authority crews are working to contain a toxic chemical spill outside the water treatment plant at Maffra in Gippsland.

An acid used to add fluoride to the water supply is leaking from a tanker parked outside the plant.

Police have set up road blocks and children at a nearby primary school have been confined to their classrooms.

-------------

Previous post   |  Top of Page   |   Next post



The content of this page reflects the personal opinion(s) of the author(s) only, not the American Chemical Society, ILPI, Safety Emporium, or any other party. Use of any information on this page is at the reader's own risk. Unauthorized reproduction of these materials is prohibited. Send questions/comments about the archive to secretary@dchas.org.
The maintenance and hosting of the DCHAS-L archive is provided through the generous support of Safety Emporium.