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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Monday, January 31, 2022 at 6:36:07 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 (15 articles)
CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING HOSPITALIZES 11 AT OHIO HOTEL
Tags: us_OH, public, follow-up, injury, carbon_monoxide
GUJARAT: 5 SUFFER FROM SMOKE INHALATION AFTER FIRE IN LAB NEAR HOSPITAL
Tags: India, laboratory, fire, injury, unknown_chemical
FIRE AT FREEDOM POOLS PERTH FACTORY
Tags: Australia, industrial, fire, response, pool_chemicals
RAJASTHAN: 4 DEAD AS FIRE BREAKS OUT IN HOUSE HAVING CHEMICAL DRUMS
Tags: India, industrial, fire, death, other_chemical
EP.89 WHEN IS THE PROCESS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE OUTCOME?
Tags: Australia, education, discovery, environmental
CHEMICAL SCREENING METHOD AIMS TO PROTECT FENCE-LINE COMMUNITIES
Tags: us, public, discovery, enviromental
MARYSVILLE OHIO HAZMAT: CHILD, OTHERS FOUND UNCONSCIOUS AT OHIO HOTEL
Tags: us_OH, public, release, injury, carbon_monoxide
LOCAL OFFICIALS CALL FOR TOUGHER CHEMICAL SAFETY REGULATION
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
MISMATCH IN PERCEPTIONS OF SUCCESS: INVESTIGATING ACADEMIC VALUES AMONG FACULTY AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS
Tags: education, discovery, environmental
BEACH IN THAILAND DECLARED DISASTER AREA AFTER OIL PIPELINE LEAK
Tags: Thailand, transportation, release, response, petroleum
ALARMING LEVELS OF MERCURY ARE FOUND IN OLD GROWTH AMAZON FOREST
Tags: Peru, public, discovery, environmental, mercury
STANISLAUS FARM SUPPLY SCHEDULED TO REOPEN AFTER FIRE
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, environmental, ag_chems
CONTAINER LABELED 'AMMUNITION' FOUND ON DAVIE HOME PROPERTY ' WSVN 7NEWS
Tags: us_FL, public, discovery, response, bomb
STATE REPORT SHOWS HOW AGENCY MISSES POLLUTION SPIKES DURING STORMS
Tags: us_TX, public, discovery, environmental
PLASTICS GROUP RECOMMENDS PHASEOUT OF SOME MATERIALS
Tags: public, discovery, environmental, plastics, waste
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CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING HOSPITALIZES 11 AT OHIO HOTEL
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/01/30/hampton-inn-marysville-ohio-carbon-monoxide/9277712002/
Tags: us_OH, public, follow-up, injury, carbon_monoxide
MARYSVILLE, Ohio ' Investigators were on the scene Sunday morning at the Hampton Inn in Marysville working to determine the source of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning that resulted in several people being treated Saturday night at a nearby hospital.
Four people have been released from the Memorial Health Hospital in Marysville after breathing in dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide at the Union County hotel that resulted in 11 people in total being hospitalized, hospital spokeswoman Melanie Ziegler said in an email.
The hotel parking lot had few cars in it Sunday morning as caution tape was visible in the pool area, where all of those injured had been before they were treated at Memorial Health.
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GUJARAT: 5 SUFFER FROM SMOKE INHALATION AFTER FIRE IN LAB NEAR HOSPITAL
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/gujarat-5-suffer-from-smoke-inhalation-after-fire-in-lab-near-hospital
Tags: India, laboratory, fire, injury, unknown_chemical
hree patients and two other persons at a private hospital suffered from smoke inhalation after a fire broke out in a lab located adjacent to it in Gujarat's Junagadh city on Monday, officials said.
The five people were later rushed to another hospital for treatment, a police official said.
Ten other patients were rescued and shifted to the civil hospital, officials said.
The laboratory in which the fire broke out was located on the same floor where the hospital was operating, they said.
---------------------------------------------
FIRE AT FREEDOM POOLS PERTH FACTORY
https://www.splashmagazine.com.au/fire-at-freedom-pools-perth-factory/
Tags: Australia, industrial, fire, response, pool_chemicals
The Freedom Pools factory at Kenwick in Western Australia suffered a serious fire on January 27.
SPLASH! understands no one was physically injured in the incident.
Freedom notified SPASA WA saying that investigators were on site and all impacted customers had been notified, and that display centres were closed over the weekend.
More than 50 firefighters fought the fire, eventually bringing the blaze under control.
Fumes
The fire released potentially dangerous fumes including fibreglass and pool chemical residue into the air around Kenwick. As hazmat crews tested the air, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services urged people to avoid the area. They also asked local people to remain inside, away from smoke and potentially toxic fumes, with doors and windows closed and air conditioners switched off.
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RAJASTHAN: 4 DEAD AS FIRE BREAKS OUT IN HOUSE HAVING CHEMICAL DRUMS
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/rajasthan-4-including-3-children-die-as-fire-breaks-out-in-house-having-chemical-drums/articleshow/89220603.cms
Tags: India, industrial, fire, death, other_chemical
JAIPUR: Four, including three children, were killed after a small house with several chemical drums went up in flames in Jamwaramgarh near Jaipur Sunday morning.
According to deputy SP (Jamwaramgarh), Shiv Kumar Bhardwaj, the victims were idenitfied as Ramesh (25), Garima (3), Ankush (5) and Divya (2).
He said that three others are undergoing treatment in the hospital for burn injuries. The local police said that the victims were members of one family.
According to Bhardwaj, the small house was used to pack turpentine oil into small packets.
Jaipur district collector, Rajan Vishal said that the focus of the administration is currently to attend to the wounded.
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EP.89 WHEN IS THE PROCESS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE OUTCOME?
https://safetyofwork.com/episodes/ep89-when-is-the-process-more-important-than-the-outcome
Tags: Australia, education, discovery, environmental
Our discussion today centers around the intriguingly titled paper, 'The fetish of technique: methodology as a social defense,' by David Wastell. Although it was published in 1996, its basic tenets are still useful and relevant today. We will examine how safety methodology and processes within organizations are often relied upon for 'relieving anxiety' rather than leading to successful or intended outcomes.
Join us as we delve into the statement (summarized so eloquently in Wastell's well-crafted abstract): 'Methodology, whilst masquerading as the epitome of rationality, may thus operate as an irrational ritual, the enactment of which provides designers with a feeling of security and efficiency at the expense of real engagement with the task at hand.'
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CHEMICAL SCREENING METHOD AIMS TO PROTECT FENCE-LINE COMMUNITIES
https://cen.acs.org/policy/chemical-regulation/Chemical-screening-method-aims-protect/100/i4
Tags: us, public, discovery, enviromental
The US Environmental Protection Agency is taking a closer look at whether certain chemicals released by industrial facilities into air and water pose unreasonable risks to surrounding communities. The agency ignored such pathways when it evaluated the first 10 chemicals under 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act. It completed those assessments during the Donald J. Trump administration and is now revising them. For 7 of the 10 chemicals, the EPA plans to apply a new screening method to predict whether fence-line communities face unreasonable risks from air and water exposures. It also plans to use the method for chemicals undergoing risk evaluation in the future. The method relies on data provided by industry from the Toxics Release Inventory and discharge monitoring reports. The EPA demonstrates the method with case studies for 3 of the 10 chemicals'1-bromopropane, methylene chloride, and N-methylpyrrolidone. The agency is seeking public comments on the meth!
od until Feb. 22. It plans to have the method peer-reviewed by a group of external advisers during a March 15'17 meeting.
---------------------------------------------
MARYSVILLE OHIO HAZMAT: CHILD, OTHERS FOUND UNCONSCIOUS AT OHIO HOTEL
https://fox8.com/news/child-others-found-unconscious-at-marysville-hotel/
Tags: us_OH, public, release, injury, carbon_monoxide
MARYSVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) ' Sixteen people, including at least six children, were injured after reports of people being found unconscious in the pool area of a Marysville hotel Saturday evening due to what fire officials said was a high level of carbon monoxide.
According to Marysville Police Chief Tony Brooks, the calls started to come in at approximately 5:30 p.m., starting with a 2-year-old girl losing consciousness at the Hampton Inn on Square Drive. Dispatchers then received several more calls reporting people passing out.
Brooks said fire department investigators said there was a life-threatening level of carbon monoxide in the pool area, causing people to become unconscious.
Brooks said 'multiple' people were affected in the incident.
According to Memorial Hospital spokesperson, seven patients were taken to the hospital by ambulance and four people were walk-ins. Of the 11 patients at the hospital, five were adults and six were children.
The spokesperson said two patients were critical but stabilized, five patients were in serious but stable condition, and four patients were treated and released.
---------------------------------------------
LOCAL OFFICIALS CALL FOR TOUGHER CHEMICAL SAFETY REGULATION
https://cen.acs.org/safety/industrial-safety/Local-officials-call-tougher-chemical/100/i4
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
More than 70 elected officials from 16 states and territories are urging the US Environmental Protection Agency to toughen and issue a stalled regulation intended to protect communities, workers, and chemical companies from chemical disasters. The risk management plan (RMP) regulation requires 12,000 high-risk chemical producers to examine and institute safe manufacturing processes to prevent accidents and aid emergency responders. The RMP provisions were modified by the Barack Obama administration but weakened by the Donald J. Trump administration. The EPA is now expected to propose additional changes in August 2022 and a final rule a year later. In a Jan. 26 letter to the EPA, the officials ask that the regulation require companies to consider climate impacts, use less-hazardous chemicals and safer manufacturing processes, and add reactive chemicals to the chemicals covered by the RMP, among other provisions. Some 177 million people live near an RMP-covered plant, the offi!
cials add, and more than 1 million workers staff these plants.
---------------------------------------------
MISMATCH IN PERCEPTIONS OF SUCCESS: INVESTIGATING ACADEMIC VALUES AMONG FACULTY AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00429
Tags: education, discovery, environmental
ABSTRACT: Many cultural and institutional barriers have prevented chemistry from realizing greater calls for diversity in academia. Though recent work has elucidated how the measures of success used in academia can disadvantage students from
underrepresented groups at the undergraduate level, thorough understanding of how success metrics are valued by minoritized students at the graduate level is lacking.
Here, we use data generated from the UC Berkeley Department of Chemistry's student-led climate survey to investigate both how graduate students prioritize and how faculty employ common metrics for graduate student success. Results revealed that faculty undervalued metrics preferred by students from underrepresented groups (URGs) in STEM such as underrepresented people of color, women, LGBTQ+ students, and first-generation students. Priorities of students that do not identify as underrepresented displayed no statistically significant differences compared to faculty values.
Questions regarding publication record, one of the often-used measures of success in STEM academia, suggest that graduate students, particularly those belonging to URGs, challenge the use of publication record as the primary metric of success in graduate school. These findings highlight some of the ways that definitions of academic success can be exclusionary for graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds and encourage re-envisioning graduate school success in ways that reflect the values of diverse student populations.
---------------------------------------------
BEACH IN THAILAND DECLARED DISASTER AREA AFTER OIL PIPELINE LEAK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/29/beach-thailand-declared-disaster-area-oil-pipeline-leak?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Tags: Thailand, transportation, release, response, petroleum
A beach in eastern Thailand has been declared a disaster area as oil leaking from an underwater pipeline in the Gulf of Thailand continues to wash ashore and blacken the sand.
The leak, from a pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining, started late on Tuesday and was brought under control a day later after spilling an estimated 50,000 litres (11,000 gallons) of oil into the ocean about 12 miles (20km) from the country's industrialised eastern seaboard.
Some of the oil reached the shoreline at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province late on Friday after spreading over 18 sq miles (47 sq km) of sea in the gulf.
The Thai navy is working with the company to contain the leak and said the main oil mass was still offshore, with only a small amount washing up on at least two spots along the seven-mile beach.
---------------------------------------------
ALARMING LEVELS OF MERCURY ARE FOUND IN OLD GROWTH AMAZON FOREST
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/climate/amazon-forest-mercury-peru.html?
Tags: Peru, public, discovery, environmental, mercury
But a new analysis of what's inside the forest's leaves and birds' feathers tells a different story: The same canopy that supports some of the richest biodiversity on the planet is also sucking up alarming levels of toxic mercury, according to a study published on Friday.
The mercury is released into the air by miners searching for gold along nearby riverbanks. They use mercury to separate the precious metal from surrounding sediment and then burn it off. Carried in the air, particles catch on leaves like dust and are washed onto the forest floor by rain. Other particles are sucked into the leaves' tissue. From there, mercury appears to have transferred up the food web to songbirds, which showed levels of mercury two to 12 times as high as those in comparable areas farther from mining activity.
'The patterns were so much more stark and so much more devastating than we expected to find,' said Jacqueline Gerson, a biogeochemist at the University of California Berkeley who led the research as a Ph.D. student at Duke. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.
---------------------------------------------
STANISLAUS FARM SUPPLY SCHEDULED TO REOPEN AFTER FIRE
https://www.modbee.com/news/local/article257822058.html
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, environmental, ag_chems
Stanislaus Farm Supply will reopen next week following a fire that promoted a shelter in place advisory in Ceres earlier this week.
The advisory was in place for about 5.5 hours Monday as a precaution due to smoke from a smoldering 500-ton pile of fertilizer grade sulfur. The fire was sparked by heat from a light fixture in a warehouse on the East Service Road site.
The local farmer-owned cooperative is scheduled to reopen Monday following 'a complete inspection and review for safety,' according to a news release from the cooperative.
'We appreciate all the efforts to protect our business and keep our employees and community safe,' the cooperative's president and CEO Nick Biscay said in the release. 'Because of this, we are fortunate to be in a position to reopen quickly so we can continue providing essential fertilizers to our customers ' thousands of farmers in the Central Valley and Western United States who support food production throughout the region.'
---------------------------------------------
CONTAINER LABELED 'AMMUNITION' FOUND ON DAVIE HOME PROPERTY ' WSVN 7NEWS
https://wsvn.com/news/local/container-labeled-ammunition-found-on-davie-home-property/
Tags: us_FL, public, discovery, response, bomb
DAVIE, FLA. (WSVN) - A suspicious container found at a Davie home brought out hazmat teams and the bomb squad.
Davie Police and Fire Rescue responded to the area of the 5600 block, off Southwest 48th Street, in Davie around 11 a.m., Friday, due to a container found on the property labeled 'ammunition.'
As a precaution BSO Hazmat responded and determined that there was nothing inside the container.
However, late into the night, fire rescue and BSO units remained on the scene. By 9 p.m., they finally cleared the area.
---------------------------------------------
STATE REPORT SHOWS HOW AGENCY MISSES POLLUTION SPIKES DURING STORMS
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/28/texas-tceq-report-industrial-pollution-storms/
Tags: us_TX, public, discovery, environmental
The Texas agency tasked with enforcing clean air rules often does not monitor industrial pollution during and immediately after severe weather events ' often the height of emissions from refineries and chemical plants ' leaving a hole in the state's knowledge of air quality, according to a new state report.
Industrial facilities, like oil refineries and chemical plants along the Texas Gulf Coast, typically shut down in advance of hurricanes and other storms to keep workers safe and avoid spills. But the process can cause pollution above what's permitted or healthy. Emergency shutdowns and other accidents, equipment breakdowns and power failures during the storms tend to create even worse levels of pollution as plants burn off waste gases, which include health pollutants and climate-warming greenhouse gases such as nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds.
But the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also shuts down its air monitoring equipment to avoid damage to sensitive devices as storms approach ' causing it to miss times when pollution can be highest.
'This occurs before the TCEQ is able to mobilize handheld or mobile monitoring, and often when stationary monitors are offline due to the storm,' the Friday TCEQ report said. 'This generates a gap in our knowledge of air quality at a time when emissions may be the greatest.'
---------------------------------------------
PLASTICS GROUP RECOMMENDS PHASEOUT OF SOME MATERIALS
https://cen.acs.org/environment/recycling/Plastics-group-recommends-phaseout-materials/100/web/2022/01
Tags: public, discovery, environmental, plastics, waste
The US Plastics Pact'a collaboration between plastic-industry participants, non-governmental organizations, and government agencies'has released a list of 11 items its members aim to eliminate from packaging by 2025. Reviews from industry and environmental groups were mixed.
The pact has more than 100 members, including consumer product companies such as Coca-Cola and Unilever, retailers like Walmart and Target, and the chemical maker Eastman Chemical. Member companies say they produced a third of the packaging used in the US in 2020.
The group says it is filling a needed role in the plastics debate. 'In the US in particular, there is a void in terms of an organization that is truly putting forward the strategy of developing a circular economy for plastics,' Emily Tipaldo, executive director of the US Plastics Pact, said in a Jan. 26 in a webinar.
The Problematic and Unnecessary Materials list is one of the pact's first initiatives. The group's initial criterion for listing materials was whether they will be broadly reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025. The group then considered factors such as hazards to human health and hindering recyclability.
Making the list are the packaging polymers polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and glycol-modified polyethylene terephthalate (PETG). For instance, PETG contaminates the recycling of containers made of conventional PET bottles.
Also on the list are carbon black pigments that render plastic items difficult to process for recycling with optical sorters. Opaque and pigmented PET'other than transparent green or blue'is on the list because it contaminates clear recycled PET. The group also lists label designs that might complicate recycling.
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