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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, July 10, 2013 7:37:44 AM
A service of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
Connecting Chemistry and Safety at http://www.dchas.org
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas
Table of Contents (8 articles)
EDITORIAL: SAFETY BOARDS GET UNEQUAL ACCESS
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, response, ammonium_nitrate
POST OFFICE WORKERS RECOVERING AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_AL, public, release, injury, methanol
AIR SHIPPER FACES PRISON AFTER HAZMAT CONVICTION :: SFBAY
Tags: us_CA, transportation, discovery, response, other_chemical, illegal
HAZMAT SITUATION AT WATERBURY PARK
Tags: us_CT, public, release, response, pool_chemicals
EXCLUSIVE: ILLINOIS HAZMAT REPORTING FLAWED, STUDY SUGGESTS
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
NO INJURIES IN STANFORD CHEMICAL LAB SPILL
Tags: us_CA, laboratory, release, response, flammables
WHY THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE MATTERS
Tags: United_Kingdom, public, discovery, environmental
SIMPSONVILLE MAYOR: NO HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH HAZMAT SITUATION
Tags: us_KY, public, discovery, response, chlorine
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EDITORIAL: SAFETY BOARDS GET UNEQUAL ACCESS
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20130709-editorial-safety-boards-get-unequal-access.ece
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, response, ammonium_nitrate
As with previous U.S. aviation disasters, there was never any doubt which federal agency would take the lead investigative role after Saturday?s Asiana airliner crash in San Francisco. The National Transportation Safety Board took control and remains the unquestioned authority on what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it from happening again.
Contrast the transparency in San Francisco with the murky investigation into the April 17 explosion in West. Nearly three months after the West explosion, the public still doesn?t know whether the blast was caused by sabotage, an electrical short or a malfunctioning golf cart parked inside a warehouse storing about 150 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, the NTSB?s counterpart for chemical disasters, immediately dispatched a team of 18 highly specialized investigators and technicians to West. Within hours of the team?s arrival, however, a turf battle developed that continues to keep the public in the dark.
Investigators from the state fire marshal?s office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives intervened to block the CSB?s team from the explosion scene. For the following month, the CSB was denied access to evidence and stopped from taking photos or interviewing witnesses, CSB Managing Director Daniel Horowitz told us.
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POST OFFICE WORKERS RECOVERING AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
http://www.waff.com/story/22793186/post-office-workers-recovering-after-chemical-spill
Tags: us_AL, public, release, injury, methanol
GUNTERSVILLE, AL (WAFF) -
Three people are recovering after a chemical spill at a Guntersville post office.
Employees found a suspicious liquid on several packages at the post office on Blount Avenue in Guntersville.
Mail employees who were sorting the packages got sick. They were treated and released at the hospital.
Postal officials said the substance was methanol and is not considered hazardous.
The post office returned to normal business Tuesday afternoon.
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AIR SHIPPER FACES PRISON AFTER HAZMAT CONVICTION :: SFBAY
http://sfbay.ca/2013/07/08/air-shipper-faces-prison-after-hazmat-conviction/
Tags: us_CA, transportation, discovery, response, other_chemical, illegal
62-year-old Bay Area man is facing the prospect of years in a federal prison after being convicted of endangering the safety of an aircraft by trying to ship hazardous materials on international flights.
Federal prosecutors say after a six-day trial jurors on Wednesday found Hasan Ibrahim guilty of nine counts of attempting to place destructive substances on an aircraft, as well as other related charges.
Ibrahim, who is from Los Gatos, operated a business called MechChem Corp., a company that for more than 10 years shipped hazardous materials.
Prosecutors told the jury that Ibrahim had intended to place nine different types of hazardous materials on a Lufthansa passenger airplane bound for Frankfurt, Germany.
The chemicals were so dangerous that some were forbidden on passenger planes, while two of the chemicals were not allowed on any type of aircraft.
Besides finding him guilty on the hazardous material charges, jurors also found Ibrahim guilty of related charges of failing to properly label the packages containing the chemicals that he was shipping and failing to complete proper shipping papers, as required by federal law.
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HAZMAT SITUATION AT WATERBURY PARK
http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/new_haven_cty/hazmat-situation-at-waterbury-park#.Udv0mDsce5I
Tags: us_CT, public, release, response, pool_chemicals
WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH) -- Emergency personnel responded to a Hazmat situation in Fulton Park in Waterbury late Monday morning.
CT DEEP Hazmat workers and the Waterbury Fire Department responded to the park.
Officials said a 15-gallon drum of pool chemicals was discovered in a small storage shed, emitting vapors. The drum was found to be secure with the top on tightly.
Officials said an environmental contractor will dispose of the drum.
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EXCLUSIVE: ILLINOIS HAZMAT REPORTING FLAWED, STUDY SUGGESTS
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-illinois-hazardous-materials-20130708,0,2772204.story
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
NEW YORK -- A 27-year-old U.S. program intended to warn the public of the presence of hazardous chemicals is flawed in many states due to scant oversight and lax reporting by plant owners, a Reuters examination finds.
Under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, private and public facilities must issue an inventory listing potentially hazardous chemicals stored on their properties. The inventory, known as a Tier II report, is filled with state, county and local emergency-management officials. The information is then supposed to be made publicly available, to help first responders and nearby residents plan for emergencies.
But facilities across the country often misidentify these chemicals or their location, and sometimes fail to report the existence of the substances altogether.
And except for a handful of states, neither federal nor local authorities are auditing the reports for errors.
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NO INJURIES IN STANFORD CHEMICAL LAB SPILL
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23612056/no-injuries-stanford-chemical-lab-spill
Tags: us_CA, laboratory, release, response, flammables
STANFORD -- A chemical spill Friday night at Stanford University sparked a hazardous-materials response from the Palo Alto Fire Department.
Firefighters were called to 418 Panama Mall at about 8:20 p.m. after a worker found four to five gallons of spilled ethanol or methanol, Battalion Chief Doug Conn said. The spill occurred in a hazardous materials storage area of the building, he said.
"You couldn't have a better place for it to happen," Conn said, adding that a double set of barriers contained the spill.
Conn said it wasn't immediately clear what caused the spill, but no one was injured or exposed to the highly flammable substance. The building is home to a mechanical engineering research laboratory. The Stanford Department of Public Safety advised people to stay clear of the area during the incident.
The university's Environmental Health and Safety Department was tasked with cleaning up the spill, Conn said. Firefighters remained at the scene as backup until about 10:45 p.m.
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WHY THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE MATTERS
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2013/jul/08/precautionary-principle-science-policy?CMP=twt_fd
Tags: United_Kingdom, public, discovery, environmental
Precaution is arguably one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented issues in the global politics of science and technology. Misunderstood, because precaution is so often wrongly asserted to be unscientific or anti-technology. Misrepresented, because a large part of the resulting stigma can be a systematic ? even deliberate ? effect of power.
Powerful interests behind a particular innovation can understandably get pretty exercised when challenged by precautionary concerns over their favoured new technology. But these highly partisan commotions need not provoke such existential angst across society as a whole. Precaution does not necessarily mean a ban. It simply urges that time and space be found to get things right.
To see the value of this, we can start by considering history. Take, for example, asbestos, lead, benzene, pesticides, ozone-depleters or overfishing. In all these areas and many more, early precautionary action was dismissed as irrational by governments, business and scientific establishments alike ? claiming there were no alternatives. Yet now, it is agreed on all sides of the debate that levels of risk were initially quite significantly understated. And, in retrospect, there were more viable substitutes than were claimed at the time. Similar questions arise in forward-looking dilemmas of technology choice; around alternatives to nuclear power or GM food, for example.
---------------------------------------------
SIMPSONVILLE MAYOR: NO HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH HAZMAT SITUATION
http://www.whas11.com/news/Chemical-spill-forces-evacuation--214531971.html
Tags: us_KY, public, discovery, response, chlorine
SIMPSONVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- The Simpsonville mayor said a hazmat situation on Old Veechdale Road was caused by a rotting barrel of chlorine buried underground.
Mayor Steve Eden said a water house used to be where homes now stand and the barrel was probably buried there years ago. The barrel most likely rotted, causing the chlorine to leak.
"From back in the 50s there is an old abandoned water system here and we think somebody buried a couple of cylinders, old abandoned chlorine cylinders, and they have just started ruptured over the years, started leaking and just happens to be in the back yard of these peoples' houses," Eden said.
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Ralph Stuart
secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Secretary
Division of Chemical Health and Safety
American Chemical Society
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