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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 5:01:50 AM
A service of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
Connecting Chemistry and Safety at http://www.dchas.org
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas
Table of Contents (9 articles)
CHEMICAL LEAK CAUSES HAZMAT RESPONSE ON UW CAMPUS
Tags: us_WA, laboratory, release, response, ethanol
HAZMAT CREWS RESPOND TO SPRINGFIELD CRASH, NORTH BECHTLE AVENUE CLOSED
Tags: us_OH, transportation, release, injury, other_chemical
GERMANY: THREE PROBED OVER DEADLY LEVERKUSEN CHEMICAL BLAST
Tags: Germany, industrial, follow-up, environmental, dust, waste
LISTENING TO THE WELL, LISTENING TO EACH OTHER, AND LISTENING TO THE SILENCE‰??NEW SAFETY LESSONS FROM DEEPWATER HORIZON
Tags: industrial, follow-up, environmental
CHEMICAL SPILL AT HVAC WHOLESALER CONTAINED: KINGSTON FIRE
Tags: Canada, industrial, release, response, sodium_hydroxide
DUMPSTER FIRE PUTS CHEMICAL STORAGE CONTAINER AT RISK AT LA PORTE FACILITY
Tags: us_TX, industrial, fire, response, corrosives, flammables, waste
SEATTLE FIRE DEPT. ON TWITTER: "UW CAMPUS HAZMAT INCIDENT: HAZMAT TEAM HAS DETERMINED THE CHEMICAL PRODUCT LEAKED INSIDE THE ROOM ON FLOOR 5 WAS ETHANOL. NO REPORTED INJURIES, CONTINUING TO WORK WITH UWPD TO MITIGATE ISSUE." / TWITTER
Tags: us_WA, laboratory, release, response, ethanol
NEW ANALYSIS PUTS MORE ACCURATE FIGURE ON SIZE OF LAST YEAR‰??S BEIRUT BLAST
Tags: Lebanon, public, follow-up, death, ammonium_nitrate
FAMILIES SUE LYONDELLBASELL OVER FATAL CHEMICALS LEAK
Tags: us_IN, industrial, follow-up, death, acetic_acid
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CHEMICAL LEAK CAUSES HAZMAT RESPONSE ON UW CAMPUS
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/chemical-leak-causes-hazmat-response-on-uw-campus/ar-AAPFchn
Tags: us_WA, laboratory, release, response, ethanol
Seattle firefighters were called to the University of Washington campus for a chemical leak early Monday.
å© Photographer:Jorg Hackemann No injuries were reported.
Just after midnight, the department tweeted that an unknown substance had leaked in a fifth-floor building. Firefighters did not say which building the spill was in or how it happened.
The substance was later identified as ethanol. The affected area was isolated with the help of University of Washington police officers.
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HAZMAT CREWS RESPOND TO SPRINGFIELD CRASH, NORTH BECHTLE AVENUE CLOSED
https://news.yahoo.com/hazmat-crews-respond-springfield-crash-181100069.html
Tags: us_OH, transportation, release, injury, other_chemical
Oct. 19‰??Hazmat crews were called to a crash in Springfield Tuesday morning after a vehicle hit trailer carrying driveway sealant, which leaked into a storm sewer.
The crash was at the intersection of North Bechtle Avenue and Maiden Lane and closed both streets as a result.
A vehicle reportedly ran a red light and hit the trailer, which was being pulled by a truck. The trailer flipped onto its side due to the impact.
One person in the first vehicle was taken to the hospital with a minor injury, according to initial reports.
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GERMANY: THREE PROBED OVER DEADLY LEVERKUSEN CHEMICAL BLAST
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-three-probed-over-deadly-leverkusen-chemical-blast/a-59552741
Tags: Germany, industrial, follow-up, environmental, dust, waste
Prosecutors in Cologne, Germany announced on Tuesday that three people were being investigated in connection with the blast at a Leverkusen chemical plant.
The explosion at the Chempark industrial park on July 27 claimed the lives of seven people and injured 31 others.
What do we know about the investigation?
Authorities raided the homes of the three suspects and seized various devices and phones, along with documents. Police also searched offices belonging to Currenta, the firm which manages the chemical incineration plant where the blast occurred.
Prosecutors believe the three suspects were negligent and failed to properly handle and store chemical waste correctly and safely.
It's suspected that waste in a tank had begun to self-heat and the temperature rose beyond acceptable levels, which is then believed to have caused the series of catastrophic events that followed.
The blast claimed the lives of seven people, leading authorities to launch an initial investigation of negligent homicide
The explosion caused an enormous plume of smoke to rise above the city. Roads in the area were closed and firefighters battled for hours to extinguish the blaze.
At the time, there was serious concern that nearby residential areas were at risk of toxic contamination. Residents were urged to remain indoors and keep their windows and doors closed.
Public health officials conducted tests on soot and dust particles that fell on a residential area near the Chempark complex.
Analysis revealed low pollution levels in the vicinity of where the exp
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LISTENING TO THE WELL, LISTENING TO EACH OTHER, AND LISTENING TO THE SILENCE‰??NEW SAFETY LESSONS FROM DEEPWATER HORIZON
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.1c00050
Tags: industrial, follow-up, environmental
It is common for accident reports and the analysis of large-scale disasters, such as the Deepwater Horizon blowout, to point to communication failures. This narrow explanation implicitly assumes that accidents could be prevented if employees spoke up about safety. In contrast, the first author of this paper, whose professional experience is introduced in this Commentary to provide context, has frequently observed that there are, in fact, many cases when employees speak up but are not listened to. These patterns of communication (or lack thereof) occur at the intersection of personal, leadership, and organizational factors, which jointly affect how safety issues are recognized, communicated, and addressed. As such, communication problems are at ‰??the tip of the iceberg‰?? of safety problems, not at their root.
In this paper, we review research on high-reliability organizations (HROs) with excellent safety records to identify their communication patterns and practices and how they contribute to the ability to enact five principles of HROs: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify, deference to expertise, commitment to resilience, and sensitivity to operations. We then apply this lens to investigate the Deepwater Horizon disaster, based on court documents, expert reports, and personal interviews. Specifically, we investigate how the communication patterns between the onshore experts and the offshore crews compared to the recommendations of HRO theory and how existing discrepancies might help explain the accident. We found that many employees were aware of safety issues and communicated concerns openly, but there was little organizational response to the issues they raised. This failure to listen was largely owed to factors that were not directly related to communication, s!
uch as time pressure and lack of resources, and a culture that valued a ‰??can do attitude‰?? and getting things done so much that it got in the way of sensitivity to operations, expert-based guidance, and communication about problems. Moreover, the challenges of the project and its aggressive timeline created an extreme, almost toxic, commitment to resilience.
Based on these findings, we discuss recommendations for improving safety in offshore oil and gas production.
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CHEMICAL SPILL AT HVAC WHOLESALER CONTAINED: KINGSTON FIRE
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/chemical-spill-at-hvac-wholesaler-contained-kingston-fire/ar-AAPIiZn
Tags: Canada, industrial, release, response, sodium_hydroxide
Kingston Fire and Rescue says a chemical spill at a local HVAC retailer has been contained.
Kingston Fire and Rescue says a container carrying sodium hydroxide leaked while outside a local HVAC retailers. The spill is now contained.
According to Kingston fire, the spill was reported Tuesday morning at WWG Totaline on Fortune Crescent.
Crews found a 1,000-litre chemical tote, a container to transport chemicals, was leaking outside of the building.
Read more: Kingston Fire and Rescue contains chemical spill in city‰??s north end
They say the chemical was sodium hydroxide, which can be found in drain and oven cleaners, and also has several other uses.
Fire crews contained the spill and contacted the Ministry of Environment.
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DUMPSTER FIRE PUTS CHEMICAL STORAGE CONTAINER AT RISK AT LA PORTE FACILITY
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/dumpster-fire-la-porte-facility/285-6de28346-5b7a-4f32-896c-c5a93e02954b
Tags: us_TX, industrial, fire, response, corrosives, flammables, waste
LA PORTE, Texas ‰?? A dumpster fire put a chemical storage unit at risk at a plant in La Porte Sunday night, according to the Harris County Fire Marshal‰??s Office .
Fire officials said there is no chemical leak and no risk to the public right now.
The fire was reported around 9 p.m. Sunday at South Coast Terminals. The La Porte Fire Department responded after there were reports of smoke coming from the plant.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, they were able to quickly extinguish the fire but noticed thermal damage to the a container holding chemicals.
HazMat crews were called to the site to check for leaks and to conduct air monitoring. The fire marshal‰??s office said the chemical is not flammable but is corrosive.
---------------------------------------------
SEATTLE FIRE DEPT. ON TWITTER: "UW CAMPUS HAZMAT INCIDENT: HAZMAT TEAM HAS DETERMINED THE CHEMICAL PRODUCT LEAKED INSIDE THE ROOM ON FLOOR 5 WAS ETHANOL. NO REPORTED INJURIES, CONTINUING TO WORK WITH UWPD TO MITIGATE ISSUE." / TWITTER
https://twitter.com/SeattleFire/status/1450017247196434432
Tags: us_WA, laboratory, release, response, ethanol
Fire crews responding to UW campus to investigate unknown substance that leaked in one of rooms. Impacted area has been isolated and there are no reports of any injured persons. Hazmat team investigating.
UW campus hazmat incident: Hazmat team has determined the chemical product leaked inside the room on floor 5 was ethanol. No reported injuries, continuing to work with UWPD to mitigate issue.
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NEW ANALYSIS PUTS MORE ACCURATE FIGURE ON SIZE OF LAST YEAR‰??S BEIRUT BLAST
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/new-analysis-puts-more-accurate-figure-on-size-of-last-years-beirut-blast/4014586.article
Tags: Lebanon, public, follow-up, death, ammonium_nitrate
New light has been shed on the size of the explosion in Beirut, Lebanon in August 2020 that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands more. Estimate of the explosive yield of the blast, which resulted from the detonation of thousands of tonnes of improperly stored ammonium nitrate and damaged more than half the city, have varied widely. In some cases, these figures were inconsistent with what would be expected based on the amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the harbour, as well as the crater size, seismic magnitude and mushroom cloud height, according to researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.
Official records indicate that roughly 2700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were stored at the Beirut harbour warehouse that blew up. The detonation ‰?? one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history ‰?? created a large crater, and seismic measurements suggested that the yield was anywhere from a few kilotonnes of TNT to much more. But other estimates suggest that the explosion was significantly smaller, maybe as little as half a kilotonne. Now, new analysis by LLNL physicist Peter Goldstein has assessed the crater dimensions, seismic magnitude estimates and the cloud height of the explosion, and concluded that all the data are consistent with a yield of around a kilotonne.
Goldstein and his team determined the yield by using crater-size observations from satellite imagery and empirical data for scaled crater radii from past chemical and nuclear explosions. ‰??The evidence suggests that the relatively large crater radius is due to a high degree of saturation of the ground beneath the explosion,‰?? he explained. ‰??It is likely that this saturation increased coupling of shock wave energy to the surrounding material and reduced the effective stress/strength of the material.‰??
Other measures, including the maximum debris cloud height and the observed crater depth, corroborated the estimates based on crater radius.
Effective emergency response planning to address potential consequences from accidents like the Beirut explosion, or deliberate attacks with weapons like improvised nuclear devices and radioactive dispersal devices, requires these models to be trustworthy.
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FAMILIES SUE LYONDELLBASELL OVER FATAL CHEMICALS LEAK
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/families-sue-lyondellbasell-over-fatal-chemicals-leak/4014593.article
Tags: us_IN, industrial, follow-up, death, acetic_acid
Incident at acetic acid plant in La Porte, US, killed two workers in July
The families of two contractors who died following an incident at a LyondellBasell plant in La Porte, US, in July have filed lawsuits alleging gross negligence and wrongful death claims against LyondellBasell and its subsidiaries.
More than 45 tonnes of a mixture of chemicals ‰?? including acetic acid, methyl iodide and hydrogen iodide ‰?? leaked from LyondellBasell‰??s acetyls plant, killing two contractors and hospitalising at least 30 more.
LyondellBasell became aware of a leak on 27 July and sought advice from a specialist repair firm, according to lawyers from Abraham Watkins. They allege that these experts recommended LyondellBasell repair the leak, but the company chose instead to call other contractors. The incident happened without warning later that evening.
The father of deceased worker Shawn Andrew Kuhleman is seeking a minimum of $1 million (å£730,000) in damages. Kuhleman was overcome by the toxic chemicals and died at the La Porte complex. Abraham Watkins is also representing the family of Dustin Day, who filed a separate lawsuit in August.
LyondellBasell started preparing to restart its acetic acid unit at the end of September.
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