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From: "Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety" <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines from Google (15 articles)
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2017 07:43:22 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: F5E37B2B-5AEE-436B-B68A-6E4CCE4CACA6**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Friday, April 21, 2017 at 7:43:10 AM
A membership benefit 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 (15 articles)
INDIANAPOLIS FIRE DEPARTMENT AIMS TO LIMIT CANCER RISKS WITH CHEMICAL DETOX SAUNA
Tags: us_IN, industrial, discovery, environmental, toxics
CAS METCALF CENTER EVACUATED AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_MA, laboratory, release, response, solvent
PESTICIDE MAKER DOW CHEMICAL TRIES TO KILL FEDERAL RISK STUDY
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, pesticides
STUDY LOOKS AT THE "CHEMICAL SOUP" IN SOME OF THE NATION'S STREAMS
Tags: us_MI, public, discovery, environmental, ag_chems, pesticides, pharmaceutical
HUGE 'BOOM' HEARD SATURDAY CAUSED BY CHEMICAL COMPOUND FOR EXPLODING TARGETS
Tags: us_MI, public, explosion, response, ammonium_nitrate
CHEMICAL SAFETY BOARD RELEASES FINAL REPORT ON DEADLY AIRGAS EXPLOSION
Tags: us_FL, transportation, follow-up, death, other_chemical
THE ARGONAUT FOUR INJURED IN EXPLOSION. NORE FUEL TEST GONE WRONG RESULTS IN FOUR INJURED
Tags: us_ID, education, follow-up, injury, unknown_chemical
FIRE, EMS CALLED AFTER UNKNOWN VAPORS PROMPT ST. VINCENT DE PAUL EVACUATION
Tags: us_KY, public, release, response, unknown_chemical
DARPA DEMONSTRATES ON-SITE CHEMICAL WARFARE AGENT NEUTRALIZATION -- OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, toxics
BRISBANE PRAWN CATCHES AT RISK FROM AIRPORT CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: Australia, industrial, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical
EPA SHOULD NOT DELAY AN UPDATE TO ITS CHEMICAL FACILITY SAFETY (RMP) RULE
Tags: us_WA, industrial, discovery, environmental
AN ALASKAN'S FIGHT TO BAN THE CHEMICAL THAT POISONED HER CHILDHOOD
Tags: us_OH, industrial, discovery, environmental, other_chemical
NONSTICK CHEMICALS SLIPPED INTO WATER, CAUSING HEALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL, REGULATORY MESS
Tags: us_nh, discovery, public, enviromental, other_chemical
SPRING CLEANING ENDS WITH HAZMAT SPILL AT WINTERVILLE HOME
Tags: us_NC, public, discovery, response, drugs
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INDIANAPOLIS FIRE DEPARTMENT AIMS TO LIMIT CANCER RISKS WITH CHEMICAL DETOX SAUNA
Tags: us_IN, industrial, discovery, environmental, toxics
The Indianapolis Fire Department (IFD) continues to take aim at Cancer in the Fire Service with the recent purchase of a Chemical Detox Sauna, built to help firefighters eliminate deadly toxins from their body after fighting fires. Firefighters from IFD first discovered the Chemical Detox Sauna at the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC International) in 2015, when Canadian Rodney Palmer, owner of SaunaRay, attended as one of the 875 vendors who exhibit at the conference every year. IFD Firefighters were conducting a full court press with their efforts to eradicate cancer in the fire service and looking for ways to help keep themselves safe. SaunaRay built a product that fully understands a target demographic desperate to stop yet another firefighter dying from Cancer. With the advantage of having the FDIC Conference in Indianapolis, IFD gratefully acknowledges that over the last 22 years they have benefitted from the opportunity to learn the latest techniques in!
firefighter safety, health and training, while utilizing the newest in fire ground tools and apparatus. Not to mention the over 25 Hands on Training classes, 80 workshops and 200 classroom sessions afforded firefighters in Indianapolis and surrounding areas as a thank you from FDIC for the teamwork and hundreds of hours it takes to make the conference happen. Firefighters from over 53 countries are represented amongst the over 30,000 firefighters who attend every year.
Palmer was approached by several IFD Firefighters at the 2015 conference, all asking how the product worked and why it was so beneficial. This deadly disease now reaching epidemic proportions within the fire service, had stricken one too many IFD firefighters and as a department IFD was prepared to strike back. Please see the attachment with information about the SaunaRay Chemical Detox Sauna. In late 2016 Chief Ernest Malone reached out to the 43 House Captains on IFD asking for a wish list of sorts. Within the IFD budget was a small amount of money that he was willing to allocate to one or more "special projects" requests that the house captains thought might benefit the firefighters at their station. One reply came from Station 44 Captain Tim McDonnell, a 30 plus year firefighter and cancer survivor. His wish list request? A SaunaRay Chemical Detox Sauna. He was one of the members who inquired about the sauna at the conference in 2015 and knew from the subsequen!
t research that this could be the IFD's next step. Chief Ernest Malone couldn't agree more. A small price to pay for the enormous opportunity to give the firefighters the necessary tools to stay safe and ownership in the knowledge that ours is a dangerous profession but it doesn't have to kill us.
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CAS METCALF CENTER EVACUATED AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_MA, laboratory, release, response, solvent
A chemical spill occurred on the fifth floor of a laboratory located at the College of Arts and Sciences' Metcalf Center for Science and Engineering on Thursday evening, Boston University spokesperson Colin Riley said.
The BU Environmental Health and Safety Office, along with the Boston Fire Department Hazardous Materials Unit, responded to the incident, Riley said.
The building was evacuated once the alarm was sounded, Riley said. Responding units inspected the scene to identify the substance, and will follow protocol before reopening the Center.
'We're responding to a [chemical] spill, so they're checking to see what the substance is, and they'll identify it, check the air quality, clean it up and open the building again, once that's taken care of,' Riley said. 'This always entail a very large emergency response, only because of the building and the fact that it's a school.'
Riley said the chemical was a solvent, similar to nail polish remover, that had been used in an experiment and had been cleaned up within an hour.
'It was just a spill of a solvent, they come in four-liter bottles and the chemical spilled,' Riley said. 'They [The BFD Hazmat Unit] put material down that absorbs it and then they disposed of it properly.'
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PESTICIDE MAKER DOW CHEMICAL TRIES TO KILL FEDERAL RISK STUDY
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, pesticides
Dow Chemical is pushing a Trump administration open to scrapping regulations to ignore the findings of federal scientists who point to a family of widely used pesticides as harmful to about 1,800 critically threatened or endangered species.
Lawyers representing Dow, whose CEO is a close adviser to Trump, and two other manufacturers of organophosphates sent letters last week to the heads of three of Trump's Cabinet agencies. The companies asked them "to set aside" the results of government studies the companies contend are fundamentally flawed.
Dow Chemical wrote a $1 million check to help underwrite Trump's inaugural festivities, and its chairman and CEO, Andrew Liveris, heads a White House manufacturing working group.
The industry's request comes after EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced last month he was reversing an Obama-era effort to bar the use of Dow's chlorpyrifos pesticide on food after recent peer-reviewed studies found that even tiny levels of exposure could hinder the development of children's brains. In his prior job as Oklahoma's attorney general, Pruitt often aligned himself in legal disputes with the interests of executives and corporations who supported his state campaigns. He filed more than a dozen lawsuits seeking to overturn some of the same regulations he is now charged with enforcing.
---------------------------------------------
STUDY LOOKS AT THE "CHEMICAL SOUP" IN SOME OF THE NATION'S STREAMS
Tags: us_MI, public, discovery, environmental, ag_chems, pesticides, pharmaceutical
A lot of different chemicals end up in our rivers and streams.
Researchers are finding these mixtures of chemicals are more complex than we thought, and it could hurt fish and other creatures.
Dana Kolpin is a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and an author of the new study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
He and his team tested 38 streams and rivers across the country for 719 chemicals. They found as many as 161 different chemicals in one waterway (the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal).
'Many of these compounds we're finding actually are by design meant to have a biological effect, whether it's a pesticide or a pharmaceutical,' says Kolpin. So, he says that warrants more study to find out what the impacts could be on wildlife, and possibly on people.
Kolpin says many of the rivers and streams they tested had a mixture of numerous chemicals.
'There's a number of areas that do have a kind of a high impact from a variety of sources, for example, wastewater treatment plants are certainly a big source of contaminants to the environment,' Kaplan says. 'In terms of this set of 38 streams, we found that half had at least 70 or more compounds in that single water sample."
---------------------------------------------
HUGE 'BOOM' HEARD SATURDAY CAUSED BY CHEMICAL COMPOUND FOR EXPLODING TARGETS
Tags: us_MI, public, explosion, response, ammonium_nitrate
KENT COUNTY, MI -- A large explosion heard several days ago in Wyoming and Grandville is now being attributed to a chemical compound explosion at a bachelor party.
Kent County sheriff's deputies said Thursday, April 20 that a large amount of Binary X -- an agent for exploding targets -- had been mixed with ammonium nitrate and detonated with a rifle about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, April 15.
The blast was heard by thousands of people in the areas of Grandville, Wyoming and northern Byron Township.
Through investigation with Grandville police, sheriff's deputies learned the explosion happened in the 7100 block of Wilson Avenue SW and they talked to the person responsible.
Kent County Undersheriff Michelle Young said police would not normally get involved with tracking down the source of an explosion -- particularly when no one reported any injuries or damage. But the sheriff's department received dozens of calls about it, prompting the investigation.
---------------------------------------------
CHEMICAL SAFETY BOARD RELEASES FINAL REPORT ON DEADLY AIRGAS EXPLOSION
Tags: us_FL, transportation, follow-up, death, other_chemical
CANTONMENT, Fla. (WEAR) ' The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released the results of their investigation into the death of Jesse Folmar, an Airgas employee killed in an explosion. The incident happened at a plant in Cantonment, Florida in August of 2016.
Nitrous oxide tanks at the plant exploded, destroying the facility and killing Folmar. He was the only employee inside the plant at that time.
The CSB says the hazardous substance was heated through a pump while being transferred into a trailer, causing the explosion.
CSB investigators found that a pump used to transfer nitrous oxide into a trailer heated the gas above its safe operating limit and triggered a violent decomposition reaction. The reaction migrated from the pump into the trailer causing the explosion. The explosion scattered large metal fragments for hundreds of feet, damaged the facility, and killed the Airgas operator.
---------------------------------------------
THE ARGONAUT ' FOUR INJURED IN EXPLOSION ' NORE FUEL TEST GONE WRONG RESULTS IN FOUR INJURED
Tags: us_ID, education, follow-up, injury, unknown_chemical
Scott Jones, a University of Idaho student, heard a loud boom as he walked the greenbelt Thursday night.
By the time he arrived at the scene, he said emergency officials were already attending to the four UI students who were injured in an explosion at the steam plant parking lot.
Originally thought to be an explosion from a test rocket, Dan Ewart, vice president of Infrastructure, said the students used testing fuel but no rocket or projectile. They were using a 'galvanized metal pipe,' and the fuel burned too fast, setting off the explosion, he said.
Officials close off a section of the University of Idaho Steam Plant parking lot where a rocket exploded Thursday night.
The students underwent surgery at Gritman Medical Center, Ewart said.
Jodi Walker, from University Commications and Marketing, said three of the students have been released from the hospital, and the one left is still in good condition.
The students cannot be identified at this time, but Ewart confirmed they were all part of the Northwest Organization of Rocket Engineers (NORE), a UI student organization formed this semester. Three out of the four injured were engineering students.
NORE member Grant Thurman, who was at the scene, said the organization conducted a similar experiment last week, but made changes to the design to improve the effectiveness of the fuel.
'It was pretty lackluster, and so we were kind of expecting the same thing this time,' he said.
Because of this expectation, students were relatively close to the pipe when it exploded, he said.
---------------------------------------------
FIRE, EMS CALLED AFTER UNKNOWN VAPORS PROMPT ST. VINCENT DE PAUL EVACUATION
Tags: us_KY, public, release, response, unknown_chemical
Wednesday, April 19, 2017, 9 p.m. ' Bardstown Police, the Bardstown Fire Department and Nelson County EMS were called to the St. Vincent de Paul store, 310 North Second St., Wednesday afternoon at about 1:37 p.m. after an unknown chemical substance was discharged in the store. The vapors made the staff and customers ill. The store was evacuated when firefighters arrived on the scene. Firefighters determined a chemical spray had been discharged in the building. They used their equipment to remove the chemical vapors from the store. The staff and customers refused treatment by EMS.
---------------------------------------------
DARPA DEMONSTRATES ON-SITE CHEMICAL WARFARE AGENT NEUTRALIZATION -- OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, toxics
DARPA has demonstrated a field-deployable system for on-site neutralization of bulk stores of chemical warfare agents -- a novel, waterless soil-scrubbing technology that safely neutralized toxic chemicals simulating sarin, soman, and mustard agents, the department's public affairs unit reported April 14. Created under the agency's Agnostic Compact Demilitarization of Chemical Agents (ACDC) program, it says the technology demonstrated greater than 99.9999 percent removal of the simulated chemicals without creating hazardous waste byproducts.
It was tested in conjunction with the Tactical Plasma Arc Chemical Warfare Agents Destruction System, which is a thermal treatment system under development for use by U.S. military services. It uses a high-temperature plasma torch to convert highly toxic chemicals into relatively benign components and then uses a water-based capture process to eliminate the last traces of contaminants, according to the report.
"We were very impressed with fast work by DARPA-supported researchers to develop the soil-based scrubber to test with the PACWADS," said Tyler McQuade, DARPA program manager. "These successful tests validated a critical component of the ACDC concept'a water-free, non-hazardous, soil-based process for on-site destruction of deadly chemicals. We now look forward to testing the ACDC scrubber with the PACWADS against actual chemical warfare agents in the coming months."
---------------------------------------------
BRISBANE PRAWN CATCHES AT RISK FROM AIRPORT CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: Australia, industrial, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical
South-east Queensland prawn fishers already financially crushed by white spot disease are reeling after learning their catch could now be affected by last week's airport chemical spill.
Trawler Michael Wilkinson said he was not told for almost four days that firefighting foam, containing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), had leaked at the Qantas hanger at Brisbane Airport.
At the time, the Government said no commercial fishermen were affected, but today the fisheries department told the ABC 35 were operating in the investigation zone.
In that time Mr Wilkinson sold 135 kilograms of potentially contaminated prawns, mostly Moreton Bay banana prawns, to local shops and suppliers.
They were caught in the Brisbane River mouth, which is in the impact warning zone.
---------------------------------------------
EPA SHOULD NOT DELAY AN UPDATE TO ITS CHEMICAL FACILITY SAFETY (RMP) RULE
Tags: us_WA, industrial, discovery, environmental
As you may know, Scott Pruitt's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is delaying or 'reconsidering' numerous science-based safeguards, generally at the behest of industry. One of the rules caught in this delay is a very important update to the EPA's Risk Management Program (RMP). After initially staying the rule for 60 days and then an additional 90 days, Administrator Pruitt has proposed a new rule to delay the implementation of the RMP update until February 2019. My colleague covered how ridiculous the idea is here.
Earlier today, EPA held a public hearing in Washington, D.C. in order to hear comments from stakeholders on a potential delay (let's not overlook the fact that the only hearing on this proposal was being held in Washington, far away from many of the low-income communities and communities of color that would have the most to lose if the rule were to delayed).
UCS took this opportunity to provide some initial feedback and amplify the voices of many of the affected communities who could not attend the public hearing today. My colleagues Charise Johnson, Amy Gutierrez, and myself, all testified. You can see our prepared comments below.
The agency is currently taking written comments on the proposed delay. We hope that you will join us and tell Administrator Pruitt that the time for delays is over. The EPA should immediately implement its updates to the RMP rule.
***
---------------------------------------------
AN ALASKAN'S FIGHT TO BAN THE CHEMICAL THAT POISONED HER CHILDHOOD
Tags: us_OH, industrial, discovery, environmental, other_chemical
Pamela Miller boarded a plane Wednesday morning bound for Geneva, Switzerland, where she hopes the world will ban a chemical she believes may have killed five members of her family.
She grew up next to a plant in Ohio that produced vast quantities of short-chain chlorinated paraffins, called SCCPs. Now she is deeply involved in the international process to stop the chemical's manufacture and other persistent organic pollutants, called POPs, that especially hurt Arctic people.
Thursday, a report she co-authored with the help of an international team will be released with test results that found SCCPs in children's toys, such as rubber duckies and Mickey Mouse slippers, and in baby bibs and a hand blender for baby food, items purchased all over the world.
The chemical, used to soften plastic, has already been banned in many countries because it harms neurological development in children, as well as disrupting the endocrine system and causing liver and kidney disease and cancer.
"It's a chemical that nobody has ever heard of, yet it is produced in huge volume and it's in many products we use every day," Miller said.
Miller grew up near the Dover Chemical Company plant in Ohio, which produced the vast majority of SCCPs in the U.S., according to EPA documents. Throughout her childhood she gathered strawberries at a farm nearby and pulled them in a red wagon to her neighborhood to sell, eating a share along the way.
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NONSTICK CHEMICALS SLIPPED INTO WATER, CAUSING HEALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL, REGULATORY MESS
Tags: us_nh, discovery, public, enviromental, other_chemical
The early 1990s were the start of a sizzling decade for ChemFab, a producer of specialized plastics. The company's water-repelling, heat-resistant fabrics were everywhere. Beta cloth, an insulator, lined the payload bay of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The roofs of the Metrodome and Georgia Dome, professional sports stadiums in Minneapolis and Atlanta, were draped with fabric coated with PTFE, a slick polymer. BusinessWeek took notice, naming the Merrimack, New Hampshire- based firm a Hot 100 growth company in 1991 after profits climbed 185 percent in three years.
The good fortune kept going in 2000 when the French industrial giant Saint-Gobain, a world leader in plastics, purchased ChemFab. After the acquisition, the product line continued to impress. The Dallas Cowboys, self- proclaimed as America's football team, now play home games at AT&T Stadium beneath 19,000 square meters of Saint-Gobain's gossamer Sheerfill fabric, which covers the retractable roof.
In several New England states, though, the company's shine has worn away in the last year. State officials identified Saint-Gobain's Merrimack facility, along with sister production sites in New York and Vermont, as sources of chemical contamination of household wells and public drinking water supplies.
Perfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFASs, that were used in the manufacture of a number of consumer and industrial goods at the facilities were detected in groundwater above the level that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is potentially damaging to human health. The contamination zone around the Merrimack facility spreads across 30 to 40 square miles, an area of nearly unprecedented size for groundwater pollution from a single site, according to Brandon Kernen, a hydrologist in the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, who is investigating water contamination.
Saint-Gobain's chemical releases are part of a much larger problem. PFASs in groundwater have been traced across the country to military bases, fire stations, landfills, hospitals, and schools ' large institutions that use foams, waxes, or cleaners that contain the chemicals. In fact, the closer regulators and scientists look at drinking water supplies, the more PFASs they find.
'It's not another contaminant du jour,' Kernen says, noting the ubiquity of PFASs in household and industrial products and the tenacity with which they remain in the environment. 'It's something we're going to be dealing with for quite a while.'
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SPRING CLEANING ENDS WITH HAZMAT SPILL AT WINTERVILLE HOME
Tags: us_NC, public, discovery, response, drugs
WINTERVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) ' Spring cleaning gone wrong, that's what happened when a Pitt County family decided to clear out their parent's attic. The Dunn's found some old bottles that sent everyone into a panic.
'We decided to clean out the attic a little bit‰?|just to see what was in there,' Carl Dunn said.
The family found unmarked old school medicine containers.
Dunn said, 'Next thing you know you're coughing and wheezing and everybody said let's get out of here.'
Firefighters, donning PPE and SCBA's went into the attic to remove the contaminated flooring that the bottles were both on (they were already outside when responders arrived). Without any markings or labels on the bottles, determining the contents was extremely difficult, fire officials said. It also made treating the patients that inhaled the substance difficult. In tandem with the County Emergency Management, North Carolina RRT-1 (regional state hazmat team), members of Winterville Fire-Rescue-EMS, and Pitt County Public Health officials, fire and EMS crews worked to properly treat the patients and determine a course of action for each bottle. It's believed that both of the bottles date back to the 1920's or 1930's.
Family members say they have an idea of where the bottles came from.
'It came from a drug store so it was possibly something that somebody drunk years ago, but whatever it was, it was an awful chemical smell that you could not really stand to be around,' Dunn said.
While this story has a happy ending with an interesting story to tell, the Dunn's know there could have been a different outcome.
The bottles now sit in a shed behind the Dunn household in Winterville. The family plans to properly dispose of them in the next few days.
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