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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Monday, November 10, 2014 at 2:51:37 PM
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 (11 articles)
HAZMAT COSTS FOLLOW UP
Tags: us_ID, public, follow-up, response, unknown_chemical
WANT TO KNOW DANGEROUS CHEMICALS NEAR YOUR HOUSE? GOOD LUCK, OFFICIALS SAY
Tags: us_TX, public, discovery, response, chlorine, cleaners, hydrochloric_acid, sodium_carbonate, sulfuric_acid, toxics
NEW TESTIMONY FAULTS WEST VIRGINIA AMERICAN CHEMICAL SPILL PLANNING
Tags: us_WV, industrial, follow-up, response, other_chemical
OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY UNVEILS NEW ONLINE CHEMICAL STORAGE MAP
Tags: us_OK, public, discovery, environmental
BURNSVILLE: 2 INJURED IN POTENTIALLY DRUG-RELATED CAR FIRE
Tags: us_MN, public, fire, injury, drugs
PARENTS OF TEEN BURNED IN HS CHEM EXPERIMENT SUE FOR $27M
Tags: us_NY, laboratory, follow-up, injury, methanol
IT'S OVER: TEXAS' EBOLA OUTBREAK HAS ENDED
Tags: us_OH, public, discovery, environmental, other_chemical
TWO ARRESTED AFTER LONG BEACH POLICE DISCOVER PCP LABORATORY IN CAL HEIGHTS
Tags: us_CA, public, discovery, response, meth_lab, waste
EXPLOSION INJURES FATHER-DAUGHTER
Tags: us_NC, public, explosion, injury, meth_lab
FACTORY EXPLOSION LEAVES 66 INJURED IN ARGENTINE CITY OF CORDOBA
Tags: Argentina, industrial, explosion, injury, unknown_chemical
DAVID SNYDER SENTENCED IN UC DAVIS EXPLOSIVES CASE
Tags: us_CA, laboratory, follow-up, injury, explosives, waste
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HAZMAT COSTS FOLLOW UP
Tags: us_ID, public, follow-up, response, unknown_chemical
POST FALLS - Some agencies that responded to the hazardous materials leak that closed Interstate 90 in both directions near the state line for 18 hours on Sept. 14 have requested $77,000 in reimbursement from the chemical firm for their services during the incident.
Andy Hail of the Spokane Valley Fire Department said individual agencies submitted requests for reimbursement to him and he forwarded the requests to Allentown, Pa.-based Taminco U.S. Inc.
"They have received the bill and have forwarded it to their insurance carrier," Hail said. "They're requesting quite a bit of documentation, so we'll be doing some followup. But hopefully this will get the ball rolling."
Hail said the requests are for overtime that was incurred during the incident, food needed for responders and equipment charges, not for regular expenses.
"From that perspective, we're not into it for a huge amount," said Hail, whose agency was among the primary responders. "Spokane Valley did not have to backfill any of its stations during this incident."
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WANT TO KNOW DANGEROUS CHEMICALS NEAR YOUR HOUSE? GOOD LUCK, OFFICIALS SAY
Tags: us_TX, public, discovery, response, chlorine, cleaners, hydrochloric_acid, sodium_carbonate, sulfuric_acid, toxics
Lubbock residents can know the dangerous chemicals used and stored within the city that must be reported to the fire department, they just can‰??t know where, according to a recent Texas attorney general opinion.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott‰??s office said in response to an Avalanche-Journal public information request that the city must release an inventory list of hazardous chemicals companies are required to report to the state and local fire departments, with the business name and address redacted.
The A-J made the request July 10. The AG had 45 business days to respond. The city had been withholding the information until after the attorney general‰??s decision.
The redacted information is a laundry list of toxic chemicals from chlorine gas and hydrochloric acid to sulfuric acid and sodium carbonate.
---------------------------------------------
NEW TESTIMONY FAULTS WEST VIRGINIA AMERICAN CHEMICAL SPILL PLANNING
Tags: us_WV, industrial, follow-up, response, other_chemical
West Virginia American Water did not prudently plan for a possible toxic spill, despite knowing that the Freedom Industries chemical tank facility was located just upstream from its regional drinking-water intake, experts for the West Virginia Public Service Commission, consumer advocates and citizen groups argue in new reports filed as part of the PSC‰??s investigation of the January water crisis.
PSC staff members also criticized West Virginia American Water officials for waiting until late in the afternoon the day of the Jan. 9 leak to issue a ‰??do not use‰?? order to the hundreds of thousands of people in Charleston and surrounding communities served by the company‰??s Kanawha Valley treatment and distribution plant.
‰??For every minute earlier the [order] could have been issued, customers would have been spared a minute of having contaminated water delivered to their homes and possibly consumed in drinking water by residents,‰?? senior PSC engineer David Dove said in testimony filed with the commission late last week.
Dove noted that, while area residents complained of a licorice-like smell earlier that morning, West Virginia American was made aware of the leak at about noon but did not decide to issue the ‰??do not use‰?? order until 4 p.m. A news release announcing the order was issued at 5:50 p.m., and a news conference held at 6 p.m., Dove noted.
‰??Staff believes that a chemical spill should automatically trigger an immediate issuance of a ‰??do not use‰?? alert to the public and that the public should be given at least 12 hours notice before any substance that may be harmful to human health is allowed in the distribution system,‰?? Dove said in his testimony.
Dove also criticized West Virginia American for not closing the intake pumps at the Elk River plant, saying that the water company appears to have made no effort to calculate how long the chemical leak‰??s plume would take to move beyond the intake, Dove said staff calculations showed the leak of Crude MCHM and other chemicals could have taken as little as 2 hours to move down river.
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OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY UNVEILS NEW ONLINE CHEMICAL STORAGE MAP
Tags: us_OK, public, discovery, environmental
The state Department of Environmental Quality is rolling out a new tool officials say will help residents see what chemicals are being stored in their communities.
The new map on the department‰??s website shows residents where sites like oil and gas wells, manufacturing plants, cellphone towers with large acid batteries and other facilities are located. Officials say the map is meant to show residents where potential hazards are in their communities.
Skyler McElhaney, a spokeswoman for the department, said the agency has received many inquiries over the past two years about where potentially hazardous sites were located. The department already kept records on those locations, she said, but they were only available to disaster response workers. Because of increased interest, officials decided to make those records available to the public at large, she said.
Residents shouldn‰??t be worried if they see a site in their community, McElhaney said. The fact that a site is listed on the map doesn‰??t necessarily mean residents are in any danger of being exposed to hazardous chemicals, she said.
‰??We don‰??t want residents to be alarmed,‰?? McElhaney said. ‰??We do want to make this information available to them if they want to use that information in their emergency planning.‰??
---------------------------------------------
BURNSVILLE: 2 INJURED IN POTENTIALLY DRUG-RELATED CAR FIRE
Tags: us_MN, public, fire, injury, drugs
Burnsville police are investigating a potentially drug-related car fire that sent two people to the hospital Friday morning.
Authorities received a call shortly before 10:30 a.m. about a burning vehicle in the 2300 block of South Skyline Drive, according to police Sgt. Jeff Witte.
Two people in the car suffered burns and were taken to Hennepin County Medical Center with injuries that were not life-threatening.
Upon further investigation, police determined that some sort of chemical, possibly related to drugs, was likely involved, Witte said.
"We are still trying to determine what it is," Witte said. "This didn't just happen because the engine overheated or something like that."
---------------------------------------------
PARENTS OF TEEN BURNED IN HS CHEM EXPERIMENT SUE FOR $27M
Tags: us_NY, laboratory, follow-up, injury, methanol
The parents of a Bronx teenager whose ear was melted in a chemistry lab fire at Beacon High School is suing the city for $27 million.
The suit was filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court by Yvonne and Claudio Yanes on behalf of their 16-year-old son, Alonzo.
Alonzo and another student, Julia Saltonstall, 16, of Manhattan were injured last January when their chemistry teacher poured methanol into four hot Petri dishes containing nitrates that had been aflame only moments earlier, according to a city report.
The heat combined with the methanol and the nitrates triggered a fireball that flew across the table where Anna Poole‰??s students were gathered.
Yanes had second- and third-degree burns on his hands and face. A custodian who responded to the put out the fire said at the time that his ear looked melted.
Saltonstall had first-degree burns on her forearms and was released after getting emergency room treatment. Her father has filed a notice of claim with the city, which says he intends to sue for $10 million.
In court papers, the Yanes family lawyer, Jeffrey Bloom, said that accident exposed ‰??gross negligence‰?? and ‰??abject dereliction and reckless disregard‰?? for the safety of students and staff by the city Department of Education.
Bloom said that only two weeks before the Jan. 2 accident, the DOE had been warned by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board that the Rainbow Experiment, which Poole was conducting, ‰??posed risk of severe injuries if performed.‰??
---------------------------------------------
IT'S OVER: TEXAS' EBOLA OUTBREAK HAS ENDED
Tags: us_OH, public, discovery, environmental, other_chemical
NBC News) - The Ebola outbreak in Texas has ended.
As of midnight Friday, it was 21 days since anyone got Ebola or was in contact with someone who got Ebola.
‰??God willing, we are going to be Ebola-free Friday midnight,‰?? said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, the elected official who oversaw the county's response to its three-person outbreak, before the deadline passed.
It started when Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian citizen planning to settle in the United States, became sick and was at first mistakenly sent home from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. He returned two days later by ambulance and was diagnosed with Ebola.
Officials had to track as many as 50 people who may have been in contact with Duncan. But the real scare came when two nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, became infected while caring for him. Vinson had traveled to Ohio to make wedding plans and, even though she wasn't diagnosed until she came back to Dallas, her travels set off waves of anxiety.
---------------------------------------------
TWO ARRESTED AFTER LONG BEACH POLICE DISCOVER PCP LABORATORY IN CAL HEIGHTS
Tags: us_CA, public, discovery, response, meth_lab, waste
LONG BEACH >> Police arrested two men on suspicion of manufacturing a controlled substance after discovering a PCP laboratory in a California Heights home, officials said Friday.
Early Friday, Long Beach police and fire officials responded to a residence in the 4300 block of Maury Avenue near Carson Street and Orange Avenue and smelled a strong chemical odor, officials said.
Officers quickly contained the scene and evacuated nearby residents after determining that the home served as a clandestine laboratory used to make phencyclidine, or PCP, a powerful hallucinogenic street drug. After obtaining a search warrant, police discovered several large drum containers filled with the drug, officials said.
The City of Long Beach Environmental Health Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Team responded for recovery of the chemical waste.
---------------------------------------------
EXPLOSION INJURES FATHER-DAUGHTER
Tags: us_NC, public, explosion, injury, meth_lab
BEAUFORT ‰?? Authorities have completed an investigation into a suspected methamphetamines lab explosion following a fire in the Pine Street neighborhood Thursday morning that sent two people to the hospital.
Beaufort Police Chief Steve Lewis said that between 8-8:30 a.m., police officers received a call about a potential structure fire at 308 Pine St.
Around the same time, a partly nude, burned woman, identified as Charley Renae Merritt, 31, appeared at the rescue squad station on West Beaufort Road requesting assistance.
A second, male victim, identified as Ms. Merritt‰??s father John William Merritt, 54, was discovered nearly seven to eight miles away on the 800 block of Tuttles Grove Road about six miles north of town, completely nude and suffering from burns to the arms and legs.
---------------------------------------------
FACTORY EXPLOSION LEAVES 66 INJURED IN ARGENTINE CITY OF CORDOBA
Tags: Argentina, industrial, explosion, injury, unknown_chemical
An explosion at a chemical factory in the central Argentine city of Cordoba left a total of 66 injured, with two of them in critical condition, officials told Efe on Friday.
The blast occurred around 9:00 p.m. Thursday evening just minutes after a small fire was reported inside the plant of the local Quimicos Rigoni company, located in the residential neighborhood of Alta Cordoba on the north side of the city.
A total of 66 people were injured but only two have severe injuries, officials of the Cordoba provincial government told Efe.
Those in critical condition are a 15-year-old youth and a woman in her 70s. Both remain hospitalized.
Police and firefighters are investigating the causes of the explosion, while local authorities evaluate the material damages, which extend to several blocks around the factory. EFE
---------------------------------------------
DAVID SNYDER SENTENCED IN UC DAVIS EXPLOSIVES CASE
Tags: us_CA, laboratory, follow-up, injury, explosives, waste
After a 2013 explosion in his campus apartment, University of California, Davis postdoctoral chemist David Snyder was charged with 17 counts relating to explosives, hazardous waste, and possessing firearms on campus. He went through a preliminary hearing last year, then in September he pled no contest to the charges. His sentencing hearing was today. The judge sentenced Snyder to a total of 4 years and 4 months, with half to be spent in county jail and the other half under ‰??mandatory supervision‰?? by the county probation department, says Yolo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven.
Update: Snyder was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine, according to the Yolo County high profile cases web page.
Coming up: a restitution hearing on Dec. 19.
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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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