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From: DCHAS Secretary <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines from Google (9 articles)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2017 05:56:17 -0600
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: E22C63A5-0009-4EBE-AA2E-9AF24CDFC2B2**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Friday, July 21, 2017 at 5:55:27 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 (9 articles)
SAFETY PROBED AFTER RAIL CAR WORKERS PASS OUT
Tags: us_PA, industrial, release, response, oxygen
SYRINGE CREATES SMALL LAB FIRE AT NORMAN HACKERMAN BUILDING
Tags: us_TX, laboratory, fire, response, unknown_chemical, waste
EXPLOSION AT SOMERSBY FACTORY
Tags: Australia, industrial, explosion, injury, unknown_chemical
SAFETY AUDIT MUST ONCE IN SIX MONTHS FOR INDUSTRIES: PITHANI
Tags: India, industrial, discovery, response
FIRE AT INDUS MAGIC LAB: NCL ORDERS INTERNAL PROBE INTO SAFETY SYSTEM AT MAGIC LAB
Tags: India, laboratory, follow-up, response, unknown_chemical
HAZMAT CREWS ON SCENE OF REPORTED ACID SPILL IN NORTH TULSA
Tags: us_OK, public, release, response, hydrochloric_acid
PHARMA UNITS TOLD TO TAKE SAFETY MEASURES TO CONTAIN MISHAPS
Tags: India, industrial, discovery, environmental, pharmaceutical
GAS LEAK MAY HAVE CAUSED KALLANG WAY FACTORY INCIDENT
Tags: Singapore, industrial, follow-up, environmental
ST. JOHN CHEMICAL PLANT: NO FURTHER STEPS, FOR NOW, TO REDUCE DANGEROUS EMISSIONS
Tags: us_LA, industrial, follow-up, environmental
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SAFETY PROBED AFTER RAIL CAR WORKERS PASS OUT
Tags: us_PA, industrial, release, response, oxygen
Federal safety officials are investigating after three workers were left unconscious Thursday morning at GBW Railcar Services outside Hollidaysburg.
Emergency dispatchers said firefighters were called at
6:52 a.m. to the facility, where workers repair and clean tank cars commonly used to carry liquids and chemicals.
Two workers found one of their coworkers unconscious inside a car he was working on, Blair County Emergency Management Director Mark Taylor said. When they went inside to help, they passed out as well.
Firefighters from Hollidays-burg and Duncansville responded, as did a hazardous materials team from Altoona, dispatchers said.
Taylor said investigators checked the scene for dangerous chemicals but found none. Oxygen levels inside the tank were low, however ‰?? a likely cause for the workers‰?? unconsciousness, Taylor said.
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SYRINGE CREATES SMALL LAB FIRE AT NORMAN HACKERMAN BUILDING
Tags: us_TX, laboratory, fire, response, unknown_chemical, waste
A small lab fire broke out inside the Norman Hackerman Building on Thursday afternoon after a graduate student disposed of a syringe containing unreacted chemicals.
The University sent out a notification through their emergency notification system that Austin Fire Department was on scene at the Hackerman Building for a ‰??hazmat event,‰?? around 4:17 p.m. Ten minutes later, students received an all-clear.
John Salsman, director of Environmental Health and Safety, said a few days ago a graduate student removed a syringe that had a small amount of a chemical in it from a glove box and placed it into a fume hood.
The graduate student believed the material in the syringe had reacted and placed the syringe into a garbage can earlier today, Salsman said. Shortly after disposing of the syringe, the garbage can caught on fire. The student then used a portable fire extinguisher to extinguish the fire and placed the garbage can in the hallway.
When the fire department arrived, they talked to EHS personnel, as well as UT Police Department personnel, and after checking the scene of the fire, said it was safe to reoccupy the building.
Salsman said if there‰??s an unidentified chemical in a syringe, it should be left in a glove box or fume hood, and EHS will come pick up the material as hazardous waste.
‰??It seemed like a big incident, but it was relatively minor,‰?? Salsman said. ‰??Obviously, we wish these kinds of incidents would not occur, but that‰??s why it‰??s important to have these conversations when they do to make sure they do not occur again.‰??
---------------------------------------------
EXPLOSION AT SOMERSBY FACTORY
Tags: Australia, industrial, explosion, injury, unknown_chemical
A man in his 40's has been transported to Gosford Hospital with burns to his face, forearms and left leg, after an explosion involving a chemical substance at a factory in Somersby this morning.
Emergency services were called to the factory at 62 Pile Road just before quarter past six.
Two fire and rescue crews and a HAZMAT Unit from Berekeley Vale remain on site trying to identify the substance involved.
Duty Commander Jeff McPherson says there is no danger to workers in surrounding areas, and no roads have been closed.
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SAFETY AUDIT MUST ONCE IN SIX MONTHS FOR INDUSTRIES: PITHANI
Tags: India, industrial, discovery, response
Hazard analysis laboratory to be set up in Visakhapatnam
Minister for Labour, Employment and Factories Pithani Satyanarayana on Thursday ordered safety audit for all industries once in six months.
He was addressing a press conference along with HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao after a two-day collaborative conference on ‰??Chemical safety and disaster mitigation in pharma industry - challenges and opportunities‰??, which concluded here.
Responding to a suggestion made by the HRD Minister, Mr. Satyanarayana ordered the regulatory agencies, including Factories Department and AP Pollution Control Board, to ensure third-party audit.
Admitting that accidents were occurring at regular intervals at Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City, HPCL, and other industrial units, he said, henceforth, clearances would not be given without getting approval on safety precautions from various agencies.
---------------------------------------------
FIRE AT INDUS MAGIC LAB: NCL ORDERS INTERNAL PROBE INTO SAFETY SYSTEM AT MAGIC LAB
Tags: India, laboratory, follow-up, response, unknown_chemical
The CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) will seek forensic help to further investigate the cause of the fire which broke out at Indus MAGIC Lab on March 27 and will probe the safety of equipment inside the lab.
Pune Newsline had in a report on June 29 questioned the existing safety measures in the lab.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the NCL management has also decided to probe the readiness of this lab, which was manufacturing soft chemicals for industry despite being under renovation for the last three years. This has raised doubts about the lab‰??s capacity for full scale operations at the time of its induction.
‰??CSIR-NCL will internally probe into the procedures followed during the construction of the MAGIC building, the specifications of materials used, fire and safety devices installed and the readiness of the MAGIC lab to conduct large scale chemical processes before the building was fully commissioned,‰?? the statement said.
A major fire in the Pilot Plant III, which housed the 13-month-old MAGIC lab, caused it to completely burn down on the night of March 27 this year. Though there were no casualties, the NCL Fact Finding Committee had estimated the loss caused by the fire at Rs 6.73 crore.
After initial investigations conducted by the Fact Finding Committee into the safety, security, medical personnel and scientists from NCL, a thorough probe was also carried out by an expert team of the Council of Industrial and Scientific Research (CSIR), which had visited NCL on April 13. The team was supposed to submit its findings in May.
---------------------------------------------
HAZMAT CREWS ON SCENE OF REPORTED ACID SPILL IN NORTH TULSA
Tags: us_OK, public, release, response, hydrochloric_acid
TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) ‰??
Tulsa police say they discovered an acid spill while investigating a burglary alarm at a north Tulsa business.
Police say someone broke into the Independent Material Company building near Admiral and Peoria around 5:30 a.m. and knocked off over a shelf with muriatic acid on it. Hazmat responded to clean up the medium-sized spill, according to police.
The suspect broke a window to get inside and took a few things, according to police. No one was injured, and no arrests have been made.
Muriatic acid is a type of cleaning material often used in pools.
---------------------------------------------
PHARMA UNITS TOLD TO TAKE SAFETY MEASURES TO CONTAIN MISHAPS
Tags: India, industrial, discovery, environmental, pharmaceutical
Visakhapatnam: To address the growing concerns among the public and workers regarding the safety and environmental pollution issues of pharma units in Visakhapatnam, state factories department in collaboration with pharmaceutical industry organised a two-day seminar ‰?? ‰??Chemical safety and disaster mitigation in pharma industry: Challenges and opportunities‰??‰?? here on Wednesday.
Addressing the industrialists and other stakeholders of pharma sector, Minister for Labour, Employment, Training and Factories Pithani Satyanarayana said only those firms, which obey the norms framed by the government, could compete in international business.
In the recent past, with increase of mishaps and loss of lives in the pharmaceutical units, the sector hogged the limelight for the wrong reasons and caught the attention of public.
In this backdrop, the conference was organised involving all the stakeholders, including factories department, pharma firms‰?? staff, workers‰?? unions and Pollution Control Board officials to get a holistic understanding about the safety lapses in the sector.
Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said Visakhapatnam, the largest industrial hub in the state, along with other north Andhra districts Srikakaulam and Vizianagaram, have been housing nearly 3,200 industrial units and major role was being played by pharma companies.
‰??Companies should provide safety measures to contain mishaps and take care about environment and public health by curbing pollution levels,‰?? the Minister said.
Two ESI hospitals with 500 beds each would be constructed in the state, he informed.‰??Giving top priority to safety would be the best way to resolve environmental pollution issues,‰?? said member secretary Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board BSS Prasad.
---------------------------------------------
GAS LEAK MAY HAVE CAUSED KALLANG WAY FACTORY INCIDENT
Tags: Singapore, industrial, follow-up, environmental
SINGAPORE ‰?? A suspected gas leak inside the clean room of an electronics manufacturing company in Kallang Way on Tuesday (July 18) resulted in 11 workers being sent to hospital, said the company yesterday.
Giving its account of the incident, RF360 Singapore said that the factory‰??s life-safety system, which is a gas monitoring safety system inside the clean room on its third floor, was activated on Tuesday.
A clean room is an enclosed area where the environment is free from dust and other contaminants, and is used chiefly for the manufacture of electronic components.
The system‰??s activation indicated ‰??a potential leak of a gas used in the production process of surface acoustic wave devices‰??, the company said.
‰??The life-safety system operated as designed and immediately triggered the gas shut-off and evacuation of the employees,‰?? it added.
---------------------------------------------
ST. JOHN CHEMICAL PLANT: NO FURTHER STEPS, FOR NOW, TO REDUCE DANGEROUS EMISSIONS
Tags: us_LA, industrial, follow-up, environmental
The chemical company at the center of a controversy over air pollution in St. John the Baptist Parish is digging in against residents who are demanding it take more drastic steps to curb emissions of a likely carcinogen called chloroprene.
Officials with Denka Performance Elastomer agreed in November to spend $17.5 million on technology aimed at sharply cutting the amount of chloroprene coming from its plant in LaPlace after a study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed residents in St. John Parish had a higher risk of cancer from airborne pollutants than any other area of the country.
The EPA study, released in 2015, traced the risk to the Denka plant, which for nearly half a century has been using chloroprene to produce neoprene, a synthetic rubber. The chemical was only classified as being particularly dangerous in 2010, amid studies suggesting it could cause lung, liver and kidney cancers.
Since then, controversy has continued to engulf the plant, with residents urging the company to take safety measures beyond those in the agreement made last year.
But in a letter made public this month, Denka officials said they would take no further steps beyond what was already promised, at least for now.
Jorge Lavastida, the company's plant manager, wrote to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality in late June, saying the company has already "devoted substantial resources" to emission control.
In a statement to The Advocate, Lavastida said, "These projects not only have been done voluntarily and proactively, but most companies would not even entertain the thought of spending this type of time and money without being ordered to do so."
Plans to retrofit the plant with emission reduction technology began in earnest eight months ago, when officials reached a voluntary consent agreement with state regulators. The plant pledged to reduce emissions of chloroprene by 85 percent before the end of 2017.
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