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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 (12 articles)
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2017 07:50:03 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: 68E9904B-111D-4352-AA11-464C8DEF6B7A**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at 7:49:51 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 (12 articles)
FIRE AT LITHIUM MINE PROMPTS EVACUATION SCARE IN NEVADA TOWN ‰?? LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Tags: us_NV, industrial, fire, response, lithium
DEPUTY RELEASED AFTER HAZMAT CHEMICAL EXPOSURE
Tags: us_TX, public, release, injury, phenol
CHEMICAL SPILL IN VIRGINIA ‰??KILLS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FISH
Tags: us_VA, industrial, release, environmental, pesticides
ANTIOCH OFFICIALS REPORT CHEMICAL SPILL 'QUICKLY CONTAINED' AS CLEAN-UP GOES ON
Tags: us_IL, industrial, release, response, ferric_chloride
GLITTERY PHONE CASES RECALLED AFTER CAUSING CHEMICAL BURNS
Tags: public, discovery, injury, other_chemical
CHEMICAL SPILL IN UW-MADISON BUILDING SENDS 1 TO HOSPITAL
Tags: us_WI, laboratory, release, injury, methanol, chloroform
ARMY ASKS DEFENCE MINISTER TO FIX RESPONSIBILITY FOR PULGAON AMMO DEPOT EXPLOSION
Tags: India, industrial, follow-up, death, explosives
CLARK COUNTY, INDIANA CEMENT PLANT BLOCKED FROM BURNING HAZARDOUS WASTE AS FUEL
Tags: us_IN, public, discovery, response, wastes
ST MARYS FIRE: MAN SUFFERS SEVERE BURNS IN CHEMICAL FACTORY EXPLOSION
Tags: Australia, industrial, explosion, injury, waste
EVERYDAY POOL CHEMICALS CAUSE ME EXPLOSION
Tags: us_ME, public, explosion, response, pool_chemicals
NMU NEW SCIENCE BUILDING CLOSED DUE TO FIRE IN CHEMICAL STORAGE
Tags: us_MI, laboratory, fire, response, unknown_chemical
WAS THE ATF WRONG WHEN IT CITED ARSON IN THE WEST FERTILIZER EXPLOSION?
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, death, ammonium_nitrate
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FIRE AT LITHIUM MINE PROMPTS EVACUATION SCARE IN NEVADA TOWN ‰?? LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Tags: us_NV, industrial, fire, response, lithium
A fire at the nation‰??s only lithium mine nearly forced the evacuation of the Esmeralda County town of Silver Peak on Monday.
Esmeralda County Sheriff Ken Elgan said about 100 barrels of lithium stored at the Rockwood mine, 215 miles northwest of Las Vegas, caught fire and burned for around eight hours.
Authorities had a school bus ready to clear out some residents in the event that noxious smoke from the fire began to blow in the direction of Silver Peak, about 4 miles away.
‰??We were prepared to evacuate the town if the winds changed,‰?? Elgan said. ‰??Mother Nature worked in our favor.‰??
Silver Peak is home to about 100 people.
A hazardous materials crew contracted out of Las Vegas was on the scene of the metal fire on Tuesday cleaning up the mess, Elgan said.
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DEPUTY RELEASED AFTER HAZMAT CHEMICAL EXPOSURE
Tags: us_TX, public, release, injury, phenol
ORANGE COUNTY ‰?? An Orange County Sheriff's Office deputy was treated and released from a Beaumont Hospital after a woman allegedly exposed him to a potentially lethal chemical late Monday evening.
According to those close to the situation, the deputy was Lawson Dry, who worked at both the Jasper Police Department and the Jasper County Sheriff's Office in recent years.
According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office, Dry responded Monday to a call on Highway 105 just north of Vidor at about 11 p.m.
Once on scene, the sheriff's office said a woman handed Dry a bottle, which turned out to be liquified phenol, a corrosive acid. Officials noted that exposure to just 15 milliliters of the tissue-eating chemical can be deadly.
Dry got a small amount on his hands and also inhaled the fumes from chemical. Dry was transported by ambulance to CHRISTUS Hospital St. Elizabeth where he underwent emergency treatment and he was released early Tuesday morning.
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CHEMICAL SPILL IN VIRGINIA ‰??KILLS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FISH
Tags: us_VA, industrial, release, environmental, pesticides
About 165 gallons of an agricultural-use chemical leaked into a Roanoke-area creek over the weekend, resulting in fish kill estimated in the tens of thousands, Virginia officials announced Monday.
The chemical was identified as Termix 5301, a type of surfactant (detergent-like substance) added to herbicide and pesticide products before application, according to the Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
The substance leaked from a punctured container on the property of Crop Production Services, a farm supply store in Cloverdale. The chemical was then washed into Tinker Creek by rainfall. Officials were notified of the spill on Saturday.
Before the DEQ identified the chemical as Termix, multiple area residents reported seeing bubbles, suds and hundreds of dead fish in the water.
DEQ said the fish that died includes all sizes and types of fish, including sunfish, rock bass and smallmouth bass, large suckers, and many smaller species such as minnows and darters.
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ANTIOCH OFFICIALS REPORT CHEMICAL SPILL 'QUICKLY CONTAINED' AS CLEAN-UP GOES ON
Tags: us_IL, industrial, release, response, ferric_chloride
Antioch officials said over the weekend that last week's chemical spill in the Antioch Industrial Park is contained and poses no health hazard to the public, and they are still seeking answers as to why the chemical was stored at the building in question.
Antioch police Cmdr. Geoff Guttschow released a statement over the weekend stating the village will work with the other agencies involved to bring any appropriate charges and liabilities against any responsible parties and will continue all necessary efforts to prevent any future incidents of this nature.
The statement, which was posted on the village's website, added that reimbursement will certainly be sought for all expenses incurred by the public agencies in providing first responders and materials when the spill was first discovered. The statement added that the spill was "comparatively small and quickly contained."
The leak was discovered on July 24 at 8:18 p.m. by a concerned citizen who could see liquid material leaking from the old Circuit Systems building located at 884 Anita Ave., and a hazardous materials response was called for immediately and both state and federal EPA officials were notified, according to the statement.
The cleanup of a chemical spill in the Antioch industrial Park began the week of July 24. (Frank Abderholden / Lake County News-Sun)
The initial chemical analysis suggests that the spilled material is ferric chloride, which is an acid and is commonly used in circuit-board manufacture, the statement added.
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GLITTERY PHONE CASES RECALLED AFTER CAUSING CHEMICAL BURNS
Tags: public, discovery, injury, other_chemical
Sure, those shiny iPhone cases containing fancy liquid and glitter look great ‰?? but they can also leave you with severe chemical burns and skin irritations, according to a company that makes them.
MixBin Electronics recalled 263,000 of these cases on Tuesday following reports of users being injured after they broke open and began leaking.
To date, there have been at least 24 people around the world ‰?? including 19 in the US ‰?? who have suffered burns or skin irritation as a result of being exposed to the mystery liquid.
‰??One consumer reported permanent scarring from a chemical burn and another consumer reported chemical burns and swelling to her leg, face, neck, chest, upper body and hands,‰?? the US Consumer Product Safety Commission stated in a report.
The MixBin recall ultimately pertains to all liquid glitter mobile phone cases for iPhone 6, 6s and 7.
---------------------------------------------
CHEMICAL SPILL IN UW-MADISON BUILDING SENDS 1 TO HOSPITAL
Tags: us_WI, laboratory, release, injury, methanol, chloroform
MADISON, Wis. - One person was taken to the hospital Monday afternoon after a chemical spill on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, officials said.
Madison fire crews responded at 1:36 p.m. to the Animal Sciences building on Observatory Drive, the fire department said.
As the crew was led to a 10th-floor laboratory where the spill occurred, an EMT stayed outside with the patient to begin medical evaluation until paramedics arrived. The patient was experiencing eye irritation after a bottle containing chloroform/methanol was dropped on the floor, the report said.
The lab manager assured firefighters that the scene was no longer hazardous, but the crew proceeded to the lab donning personal protection equipment as a precaution, according to the report. Among the shards of broken glass, the crew found a crystalline residue left behind by the chemicals, which had already evaporated.
Two UW chemical safety specialists quickly arrived to the lab to take over cleanup duties. They offered further assurance that there was no danger to occupants.
Firefighters retrieved the patient‰??s belongings and took the person to the hospital. The MFD Hazardous Incident Team was briefed on the incident, but was not activated.
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ARMY ASKS DEFENCE MINISTER TO FIX RESPONSIBILITY FOR PULGAON AMMO DEPOT EXPLOSION
Tags: India, industrial, follow-up, death, explosives
The Army has conveyed its serious concerns to the defence ministry over the Ordnance Factory Board‰??s ‰??failure‰?? to punish officials responsible for last year‰??s massive blast at an ammunition depot in Maharashtra in which 19 army personnel perished, an official document says.
Over 19,325 defective anti-tank mines had exploded primarily due to leakage of explosives from some of the mines stored at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon.
In a letter to Defence Production Secretary Ashok Kumar Gupta, the Army headquarters has sought fixing of responsibility for the blaze at the depot on May 31, 2016.
Separately, the Army has taken up the issue with Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra, official sources said.
Two army officials, four defence security corps personnel and 13 defence fire safety staff were killed in the fire at the depot, the largest ammunition and weapons store in the country and said to be the second largest in Asia.
---------------------------------------------
CLARK COUNTY, INDIANA CEMENT PLANT BLOCKED FROM BURNING HAZARDOUS WASTE AS FUEL
Tags: us_IN, public, discovery, response, wastes
An Indiana judge has dealt a serious blow to a cement plant's three-year push to burn hazardous materials as fuel 12 miles north of Louisville.
The former Italian-owned Essroc plant ‰?? now German-owned Lehigh Hanson ‰?? failed to persuade Judge Susan L. Orth for the Clark County Circuit Court that Clark County zoning officials botched their handling of the controversial matter.
"The court has clearly rejected (Lehigh Hanson's) efforts to burn hazardous wastes near so many homes and schools without complying with the county's longstanding zoning requirements," said Khushi Desai, staff attorney with Earthjustice, which was representing the Sierra Club in the case.
The Sierra Club had intervened in the case filed by the company against Clark County. The Conservation Law Center in Bloomington was also involved in the case.
"It's time for (Lehigh Hanson) to follow the process and ensure the protections required by the law," she said.
---------------------------------------------
ST MARYS FIRE: MAN SUFFERS SEVERE BURNS IN CHEMICAL FACTORY EXPLOSION
Tags: Australia, industrial, explosion, injury, waste
A FACTORY worker is in a critical but stable condition after suffering severe burns to his body in an explosion in St Marys this morning.
Emergency services were called to the Solveco waste facility on Links Rd about 8.37am.
A total of 18 fire trucks battled the blaze at the chemical waste facility, which ‰??involved a processing machine and aerosol cans had exploded‰?? a Fire and Rescue NSW spokesman said.
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EVERYDAY POOL CHEMICALS CAUSE ME EXPLOSION
Tags: us_ME, public, explosion, response, pool_chemicals
July 30--Two Chester residents accidentally caused an explosion that shattered a window while "mixing dissimilar chemicals" to clean a swimming pool on Sunday, firefighters said.
The two residents, who were not injured, were doing a "a normal everyday pool operation" when the explosion occurred at a North Chester Road home, Lincoln Deputy Fire Chief Frank Hammond Jr. said.
"It made a big splatter and a big boom," Hammond said Sunday.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, pool chemicals can cause fires, heat buildups, toxic chemical releases and personal injuries when wetted by a small amount of water or mixed improperly.
"It was an honest mistake. They were normal everyday pool chemicals. There was no ill intent here," Hammond added. "There was no playing around. It was just a normal everyday pool operation."
After the explosion, the residents drove themselves to the Public Safety building in Lincoln, where they were checked out by ambulance workers at about 10:45 a.m., Hammond said.
They had no apparent injuries and declined to go to a hospital for further examination, Hammond said.
---------------------------------------------
NMU NEW SCIENCE BUILDING CLOSED DUE TO FIRE IN CHEMICAL STORAGE
Tags: us_MI, laboratory, fire, response, unknown_chemical
MARQUETTE -- Due to a fire that started in a chemistry storage room, the NMU New Science Building was evacuated, and has been shut down until further notice.
Around 8:30 this morning, a fire alarm located near the chemistry storage room went off. Though the Marquette Fire Department responded promptly, NMU spokesperson Derek Hall says that the fire suppression system installed in the building put out the fire very quickly.
Hall estimated between 50-60 students, staff, and faculty in the building at the time of the fire. Thankfully, everyone was evacuated safely.
Currently, fire officials are still securing the building before they can turn it back over to begin cleanup.
The fire department believes that the fire started in a garbage can in the chemical storage room.
Hall says that they have not yet been able to assess the damages, but are hoping to have the building back open by tomorrow.
---------------------------------------------
WAS THE ATF WRONG WHEN IT CITED ARSON IN THE WEST FERTILIZER EXPLOSION?
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, death, ammonium_nitrate
When the ATF held a press conference in West, Texas more than a year ago to announce a big finding in the 2013 fertilizer plant explosion, there was a lot riding on it.
Hundreds of lawsuits had been filed against the fertilizer manufacturer. Much further reaching, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was working on a rewrite of one of two major sets of federal rules governing chemical plant safety.
So when ATF Special Agent in Charge Robert Elder declared the deadly blast, which leveled much of the town and exposed gaping holes in chemical storage and processing regulations, an act of arson, the plaintiffs' lawyers weren't the only ones getting nervous.
Safety advocates feared the ATF ruling would kill the momentum that President Barack Obama's administration had gained on chemical plant reforms after he attended memorials for the fallen firefighters of West. If it had been deliberately set, then what's the point of new rules?
Their fears appear to have come true.
Last month, the EPA announced it was delaying issuance of risk management rules for chemical plants by an additional 20 months, putting them on track to be two years late overall, and raising the prospect that they will be completely gutted. Environmental groups immediately sued.
In justifying the delay, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the industry and other stakeholders hadn't had time to take into account the arson finding, and since the new rules heavily cited the West disaster, the agency needed more time to consider.
But how the fire started has nothing to do with why the plant exploded.
As the U.S. Chemical Safety Board noted in its exhaustive report, a fire of any source was a problem at the plant because the ammonium nitrate fertilizer was stored in flammable wooden bins, and was likely adulterated in a way that made it more prone to detonate. Likewise, the source of ignition was unrelated to the problems emergency responders had: lack of training and communication, and a dearth of knowledge about the materials stored at the plant. Not to mention that the town had grown too close to the plant to withstand a fiery blast of any cause.
The EPA rules touch on those topics. They recognize that no amount of security at a plant matters if the plant is inherently unsafe to start with. And that any fire, accidental or otherwise, will become a catastrophe if a town isn't prepared for it. The Chronicle's Chemical Breakdown project found Houston lacking in these areas.
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