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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, October 15, 2014 at 7:43:26 AM
A service of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas
Table of Contents (9 articles)
EXPLOSION AT MOONACHIE CHEMICAL FACTORY INJURES 4
Tags: us_NJ, industrial, explosion, injury, hydrogen, oxygen
EBOLA PANIC AND OVERREACTION: HAZMAT SUITS AND NEGATIVE AIR PRESSURE ARE UNNECESSARY.
Tags: us_NY, public, discovery, response
EXXONMOBIL BLAMES FIRE ON CLEANING COMPANIES
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, response
HAZMAT TEAM CALLED OUT TO LOCATION OF FORMER CTS PLANT
Tags: us_NC, public, release, response, runoff
NURSES UNION THREATENS TO 'PICKET EVERY HOSPITAL IN THIS COUNTRY' OVER EBOLA HAZMAT SUITS
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
HOW DOES AN AMERICAN NURSE CONTRACT EBOLA? WITH DIRECTIONS LIKE THESE.
Tags: us_TX, public, discovery, response
SMALL CHEMICAL EXPLOSION ROCKS IRONDALE BUSINESS
Tags: us_AL, laboratory, explosion, response, unknown_chemical
SEATTLE?S TESORO RAIL FACILITY WAS LEAKING A FLAMMABLE OIL BYPRODUCT INTO STORMWATER SYSTEM
Tags: us_WA, transportation, discovery, environmental, flammables
LOS ALAMOS BLAMED FOR REPOSITORY FIRE
Tags: us_NM, industrial, follow-up, injury, radiation, waste
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EXPLOSION AT MOONACHIE CHEMICAL FACTORY INJURES 4
Tags: us_NJ, industrial, explosion, injury, hydrogen, oxygen
MOONACHIE - A volatile mixture of hydrogen and oxygen set off a large-scale explosion at the Crest Foam Industries headquarters late Monday afternoon, injuring several workers and forcing an evacuation of the factory, fire officials said Monday.
Four employees of Crest Foam Industries at 100 Carol Place suffered minor head injuries when an explosion broke out at the center of the factory just after 4:30 p.m., according to Moonachie Fire Lt. Justin Derevyanik.
The explosion was so loud it could be heard in the neighboring town of Little Ferry.
?It almost knocked us off our feet,? said Derevyanik, who was three blocks away when the explosion occurred at the insulation factory.
A total of 17 employees were able to evacuate themselves. The three injured workers suffered concussions and are being treated at Hackensack University Medical Center, Derevyanik said.
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EBOLA PANIC AND OVERREACTION: HAZMAT SUITS AND NEGATIVE AIR PRESSURE ARE UNNECESSARY.
Tags: us_NY, public, discovery, response
week ago a man with an apparent flu-like illness and a recent travel history to Liberia entered my emergency department. Before anyone realized he was an actor in a New York City Department of Health-mandated Ebola-readiness drill, he was isolated in a negative-pressure airborne pathogen isolation room. His providers donned the appropriate personal protective equipment upon entry to his room, and doffed it correctly when they exited. My colleagues passed this test.
The day before, two passengers on a flight arriving to Newark Liberty International Airport from Brussels were pulled from the plane on the tarmac and dramatically evacuated to a local hospital by hazmat-suited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials to be evaluated for suspected Ebola infections.
These two seemingly encouraging examples of vigilant medical responses may actually be harbingers of an emerging problem: the overutilization of medical resources in response to widespread panic, and not to genuine medical needs.
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EXXONMOBIL BLAMES FIRE ON CLEANING COMPANIES
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, response
After a company cleaned equipment at ExxonMobil?s Beaumont refinery, a fire erupted, causing substantial damage, according to a recently filed lawsuit.
ExxonMobil Corp. filed a lawsuit Sept. 9 in Jefferson County District Court against Zurich American Insurance Co., American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Co., Lexington Insurance Co., Signature Industrial Services, Clean Harbors Industrial Services and Brock Services.
In its complaint, ExxonMobil says a fire broke out at its Beaumont refinery on April 17, 2013. The fire originated in the refinery?s catalytic hydro desulfurizor 2 unit, which contains equipment that removes sulfur from certain hydrocarbon feeds, according to the complaint.
Before the fire, ExxonMobil had hired defendant Clean Harbors to clean the exchangers in an attempt to purge all hydrocarbons from the system, the suit states. It also hired defendant Signature to remove bolts from the exchangers after the initial clean was completed, the complaint says.
?The day before the fire, Clean Harbors declared the chemical clean complete,? the suit states. ?It is now apparent, however, that the chemical clean was not complete. Despite ExxonMobil having hired Clean Harbors to purge all hydrocarbon from the system, an estimated 30-60 gallons of hydrocarbon were released from the channel head flange as bolts from the flange were being removed by Signature. Signature used a cutting torch ? as opposed to an impact wrench ? to remove the bolts, and the flame from the torch ignited the residual hydrocarbons.?
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HAZMAT TEAM CALLED OUT TO LOCATION OF FORMER CTS PLANT
Tags: us_NC, public, release, response, runoff
ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- A Hazmat team from the Asheville Fire Department responded Monday night to a location on Mills Gap road just up from the former CTS plant.
Several people complained of headaches from water runoff coming from a CTS remediation site on private property next to the plant.
"People who have gone down there (to the water), as soon as they take a good whiff of it, are backing out of there with headaches," activist Tate McQueen said.
"It's just a cover up, more cover up," Terry Rice said, who owns the property with his Mother Dot Rice.
Rice, who's still living on his land, said he experienced a headache Monday morning. His friend Bob Taylor said fumes from the water at the culvert site across the street are strong.
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NURSES UNION THREATENS TO 'PICKET EVERY HOSPITAL IN THIS COUNTRY' OVER EBOLA HAZMAT SUITS
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
The nation's largest union and professional association of nurses said it will rise up in protest if hazardous-material suits are not in every hospital soon.
"I'm angry about this," said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United. "We want the first line of defense to be the most prepared. Our hospitals are resisting us. The CDC doesn't say that we need hazmat suits. If this doesn't change dramatically, we will picket every hospital in this country if we have to."
The uproar over hazmat suits is merely the latest clash between Nurses United and the CDC. Bonnie Castillo, a National Nurses United disaster relief expert, blasted CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden for blaming the second Ebola victim in the U.S.--an unnamed nurse who helped the Liberian man who brought Ebola to America--on a "protocol breach" that led to her contracting the deadly virus.
"You don't scapegoat and blame when you have a disease outbreak," said Castillo. "We have a system failure. That is what we have to correct."
---------------------------------------------
HOW DOES AN AMERICAN NURSE CONTRACT EBOLA? WITH DIRECTIONS LIKE THESE.
Tags: us_TX, public, discovery, response
Here's what's scary about the Dallas health-care worker infected with Ebola: she knew she was treating an Ebola patient.
That's not supposed to happen. We've been told that Ebola can be stopped using modern medical protocols. An American health-care worker who is part of a team that knows it's treating an Ebola patient is supposed to be able to protect herself. So what happened?
READ MORE: 18 things you should know about Ebola
The simple answer is that the Ebola treatment protocols are complicated. It helps to look at this Centers for Disease Control and Prevention checklist. These are the instructions the federal agency gives caregivers for how to take off the protective gear that workers wear when treating patients with deadly diseases, like Ebola.
It is 21 items long. There are full sections on the gloves, and the gowns, and the face mask ?each with multiple steps. Imagine trying to keep all this in mind while also trying to treat a patient:
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SMALL CHEMICAL EXPLOSION ROCKS IRONDALE BUSINESS
Tags: us_AL, laboratory, explosion, response, unknown_chemical
IRONDALE, Alabama - A small chemical explosion rocked an Irondale company Monday morning, but authorities reported no injuries and no fire inside the building.
Police and firefighters received a call at 10:33 a.m. of an explosion at Professional Service Industries Inc., a geotechnical engineering and environmental testing company. The business is located at 2800 Commerce Square East.
Employees said something exploded inside the safety storage cabinet in the warehouse. Ten people were quickly evacuated from the building, but no one was injured.
"It was a pretty good jolt,'' said project specialist Tad Nelson. "We knew it was something outside the ordinary."
Irondale police said it appears a drum fell off of a shelf and exploded when it hit the ground. It left behind a pool of liquid on the floor.
Firefighters refused to comment on the extent of damage inside, but police Det. Michael Mangina said it didn't appear to be widespread.
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SEATTLE?S TESORO RAIL FACILITY WAS LEAKING A FLAMMABLE OIL BYPRODUCT INTO STORMWATER SYSTEM
Tags: us_WA, transportation, discovery, environmental, flammables
Seventy miles north of Seattle, the Tesoro Anacortes rail facility?which daily offloads some 50,000 barrels of Bakken crude from tanker cars?was releasing a highly flammable oil byproduct into a stormwater system that lacked ?required controls? for at least a year before state regulators were made aware of the potential hazard.
A faulty pipe connection was the source of the problem, according to a Northwest Clean Air Agency enforcement report obtained via an open-records request. As a result of the flaw, hydrocarbon vapors were being produced in the rail facility?s stormwater system that could have ignited under the right conditions, experts say.
Tesoro officials insist there was no risk of fire.
Yet state regulators never inspected the rail facility to assess the fire risk because it appears those charged with ensuring public safety were caught up in a maze of Catch-22 rules that work against timely assessment of potential worker-safety and fire hazards.
NWCAA inspectors did not visit the rail facility until five months after Tesoro had disconnected the problematic pipe. Still, the agency?s enforcement report indicates that vapors containing ?volatile organic compounds? were still being released from numerous points in the company?s stormwater system, parts of which are located a stone?s throw from the crude-oil railcar staging area.
---------------------------------------------
LOS ALAMOS BLAMED FOR REPOSITORY FIRE
Tags: us_NM, industrial, follow-up, injury, radiation, waste
Failure of Los Alamos National Laboratory operators to properly package waste may have caused a fire and radioactive release early this year at the nation?s only operating underground nuclear waste storage facility, concludes a recent report. The incident in February injured several workers and shut down the Department of Energy?s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a Carlsbad, N.M., repository for transuranic waste from DOE nuclear weapons facilities including the Los Alamos lab. The repository is not expected to reopen until 2016.
In the report, DOE?s independent inspector general finds that incompatible or potentially incompatible materials?cellulose-based kitty litter sorbent and liquid acid neutralizers?were placed in drums with radioactive nitrate salt waste. This may have resulted in a chemical reaction that led to the fire, the report says, adding that the exact cause has not been determined. WIPP stores large volumes of transuranic waste consisting mostly of radioactive clothing, rags, tools, and other material, some of which is combustible. The shutdown will delay cleanups at many DOE facilities and will cost tens of millions of dollars, the report says.
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