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From: Ralph Stuart <membership**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (9 articles)
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2022 06:47:50 -0500
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU>
Message-ID: E6FB3489-00C6-4BD3-BDD6-B89888F34FB2**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Friday, March 4, 2022 at 6:47:36 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)
LYNN MA HAZMAT SITUATION: POLICE OFFICERS EXPOSED TO FENTANYL ' NBC BOSTON
Tags: us_MA, public, release, injury, clandestine_lab
FREDERICK CO. TEEN WHO TRIED MAKING MUSTARD GAS IN SCHOOL FACES CRIMINAL CHARGES
Tags: us_MD, education, discovery, response, illegal, mustard_gas
CALIFORNIA FIRE LED TO SPIKE IN BACTERIA, CLOUDINESS IN COASTAL WATERS
Tags: us_CA, public, follow-up, environmental, runoff
BURIED FUEL TANK FOUND NEAR CHEMICAL SPILL ON MICHIGAN RIVER
Tags: us_MI, public, follow-up, response, petroleum
SMALL FIRE AT JANCO EXTINGUISHED
Tags: us_IN, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
HOW TO CAPTURE AND USE NEAR-MISS LAB-INCIDENT REPORTS IN ACADEMIA
Tags: us_MN, laboratory, discovery, environmental, waste
IMPROVED PESTICIDE PRODUCT LABELING INFORMATION FOR HOUSEHOLD LAWN MANAGEMENT: RECOMMENDED SAFE DURATIONS IN SUPPORT OF MINIMIZING CHILDREN'S EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES
Tags: Chile, public, discovery, environmental, pesticides
NUAA EXPLOSION HIGHLIGHTS HUMAN ERROR IN LABS ACROSS CHINA
Tags: China, laboratory, follow-up, environmental
A TREATY CONTROLLING PLASTIC IS COMING
Tags: Kenya, public, discovery, environmental, plastics, waste
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LYNN MA HAZMAT SITUATION: POLICE OFFICERS EXPOSED TO FENTANYL ' NBC BOSTON
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/hazmat-incident-in-lynn-police-suspects-exposed-to-fentanyl/2660189/
Tags: us_MA, public, release, injury, clandestine_lab
Emergency crews are on scene of a hazardous materials incident in Lynn, Massachusetts, after police were exposed to fentanyl while attempting to execute a search warrant Thursday afternoon.
The scene is located on Michigan Avenue.
Lynn Police Lt Michael Kmiec said officers were executing a search warrant and a few officers were exposed to what is believed to be fentanyl. He said an unspecified number of officers were being treated at the scene and two suspects were taken to the hospital.
"Nothing appears to be life-threatening at this time," he said.
The scene remains active.
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FREDERICK CO. TEEN WHO TRIED MAKING MUSTARD GAS IN SCHOOL FACES CRIMINAL CHARGES
https://wtop.com/frederick-county/2022/03/frederick-co-teen-who-tried-making-mustard-gas-in-school-faces-criminal-charges/
Tags: us_MD, education, discovery, response, illegal, mustard_gas
A 14-year-old boy is facing criminal charges after a social media video inspired him to attempt to make mustard gas at a Frederick County, Maryland, high school on Thursday.
According to the Frederick County Sheriff's Office, the teenager told deputies he watched a TikTok video on how to make mustard gas and then shared the video and a photo on Snapchat saying how he planned to make the chemical agent at Urbana High School.
At 8:30 a.m., school staff alerted a school resource officer about the social media post and that a student may have brought hazardous materials into the building. As a result, deputies were alerted and arrived with hazmat units from the Frederick County Division Fire and Rescue Services.
Students were evacuated to Urbana Middle School and into school buses while first responders did a full sweep of the building. The hazardous material the student brought to school was bleach.
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CALIFORNIA FIRE LED TO SPIKE IN BACTERIA, CLOUDINESS IN COASTAL WATERS
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/california-fire-led-to-spike-in-bacteria-cloudiness-in-coastal-waters
Tags: us_CA, public, follow-up, environmental, runoff
The November 2018 Woolsey Fire in Southern California's Los Angeles and Ventura counties left more than a nearly 100,000-acre burn scar behind: It also left the adjacent coastal waters with unusually high levels of fecal bacteria and sediment that remained for months.
For a new study, published in Nature Scientific Reports, scientists combined satellite imagery, precipitation data, and water quality reports to assess two standard parameters for coastal water quality after the fire: the presence of fecal indicator bacteria and the turbidity, or cloudiness, of the water.
Fecal indicator bacteria originate from the gastrointestinal tracts of humans and other warm-blooded animals. While they're not harmful, they indicate the presence of other bacteria and pathogens found in feces that can be. Turbidity has other implications: Cloudy, murky water results in less sunlight reaching marine life ' like kelp and phytoplankton ' that rely on it to survive.
When it rains, runoff typically carries some bacteria and sediment from the land to coastal waters. But the huge spike in both following the fire was anything but typical.
'Post-fire, we saw drastic water quality changes, particularly at beaches draining the burned area,' said the study's lead author, Marisol Cira, a UCLA Ph.D. candidate and an intern at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. 'In those areas, both total coliform bacteria and enterococcus were far greater than pre-fire levels, as was turbidity plume size.'
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BURIED FUEL TANK FOUND NEAR CHEMICAL SPILL ON MICHIGAN RIVER
https://www.argus-press.com/news/state_news/article_0e0007e1-3148-50db-a5fc-83ecce61efd5.html
Tags: us_MI, public, follow-up, response, petroleum
FLAT ROCK, Mich. (AP) ' A massive, possibly century-old underground fuel oil tank was found near a southeastern Michigan river's tributary that had a chemical-type sheen on its surface.
A company that owns the property southwest of Detroit in Flat Rock found the tank, WXYZ-TV reported Thursday.
Flat Rock Metal said in a news release that the company and the state had no record of the buried storage tank, which has an estimated capacity of about 10,000 gallons (37,854 liters).
'When we found out about the possibility of oil in the river, we committed to solving that mystery," the company said. 'What we discovered was an underground fuel oil storage tank beneath the property where we have been located since the 1980s.'
'Our company did not and could not have created any issues with this hidden tank,' the statement continued. "Now, all we can do is address the tank and contain and dispose of any fuel oil that was in it.'
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SMALL FIRE AT JANCO EXTINGUISHED
https://www.abc57.com/news/commercial-fire-reported-on-e-7th-street-in-mishawaka
Tags: us_IN, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. ' A commercial fire was reported at a building on E. 7th Street in Mishawaka Thursday afternoon, St. Joseph County Dispatch reported.
According to fire officials, the small fire began with a chemical issue.
The fire has since been put out.
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HOW TO CAPTURE AND USE NEAR-MISS LAB-INCIDENT REPORTS IN ACADEMIA
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.2c00016
Tags: us_MN, laboratory, discovery, environmental, waste
A near miss'sometimes called a close call or a good catch'is an unsafe event that falls short of causing significant injuries, property damage, or release of hazardous materials into the environment. Local, state, or federal government agencies may require employers to report those more significant incidents. But it's just as important to document events where little or no harm is done, such as equipment failures, minor injuries, and unexpected chemical reactions, because they can point to interventions that may prevent major accidents in the future.
When Tonks and his colleagues at UMN analyzed 5 years of their Learning Experience Reports, which department members use to communicate safety concerns and near misses in chemistry, the team found that the most common incidents involved spills, small fires, and equipment failures. Out of 85 reports submitted to the system, 10 were near misses that warranted further investigation and 3 necessitated an injury report (J. Chem. Educ.2021, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00133). Considered in conjunction with the waste spill reports, these results show that, without a way to document near-miss incidents, chemists are missing out on crucial data for improving research safety, says Tonks.
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IMPROVED PESTICIDE PRODUCT LABELING INFORMATION FOR HOUSEHOLD LAWN MANAGEMENT: RECOMMENDED SAFE DURATIONS IN SUPPORT OF MINIMIZING CHILDREN'S EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.1c00092
Tags: Chile, public, discovery, environmental, pesticides
Pesticide product labels are critical for consumers to safely and legally use pesticides. Because residue levels in the environment are relatively high immediately after pesticide application, avoiding contact with residues in the emitted area after the application could help reduce pesticide exposure. However, the safety instructions on pesticide product labels after pesticide application are insufficient. To minimize pesticide exposure and promote integrated pest management, we improved pesticide product labels by introducing recommended safe durations (close windows and doors and stay off lawns after pesticide application), which were proposed using screening models and specific to individual active ingredients.
The results showed that children's exposure to residues in the lawn environment can be reduced by over 30% for many currently used pesticides with a recommended safe duration of 3 d. Rainfall or irrigation events can help reduce exposure to hydrophilic pesticides, and high temperatures can further reduce the exposure because of the enhanced overall dissipation process of pesticides in the lawn environment. Based on the simulations, we improved the pesticide product label by adding recommended safe durations and reducing children's exposure to residues, providing the effects of weather conditions and irrigation activities on the reduced pesticide exposure, and clarifying the difference between exposure and adverse health risks. The proposed safety instructions can be customized for individual active ingredients and easily understood/followed by consumers, which can help minimize children's exposure to residues and promote integrated pest management.
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NUAA EXPLOSION HIGHLIGHTS HUMAN ERROR IN LABS ACROSS CHINA
https://www.thenanjinger.com/news/national-news/nuaa-explosion-highlights-human-error-in-labs-across-china/
Tags: China, laboratory, follow-up, environmental
recently-released study is telling the world that the relatively frequent accidents in China's university laboratories are, for the most part, the result of human error. But for some in a Nanjing University, it's all a little too late.
On the afternoon of 24 October last year, an explosion ripped through a lab in the Jiangning campus of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA). Two people died and at least six were injured.
As this publication reported, social media quickly became awash with videos and photos of the unfolding scene. Some showed billowing clouds of smoke from one of the campus buildings, while others depicted a man with burn marks on his skin and the emergency services clearing up in the aftermath.
While the explosion at NUAA was just the latest lab-based accident in China that led to loss of life, it turns out the root causes of such, all across the country, have been largely the same through 2 decades of disasters.
Indeed, Chinese chemists had been calling for improvements to lab safety at research institutions following previous incidents for some time, reported the Global Times immediately after the NUAA incident. That publication said that many chemists feel there has been a 'systematic negligence of safety'.
Hence comes the recently released study. Published by the Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, the study looked into a total of 110 accidents in China's university labs.
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A TREATY CONTROLLING PLASTIC IS COMING
https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/treaty-controlling-plastic-coming/100/i9
Tags: Kenya, public, discovery, environmental, plastics, waste
Countries from around the world agreed March 2 to negotiate a global treaty aimed at controlling plastic, from production to disposal.
'Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic,' says Espen Barth Eide, Norway's minister for climate and the environment. But with the backing for a treaty, from 175 countries, 'we are officially on track for a cure,' he says in a statement. Eide presided at a meeting in Nairobi of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), the UN's top decision-making body on environmental issues, where governments endorsed creation of the plastic pact.
The planned accord, expected to be completed by the end of 2024, is to cover the lifecycle of plastics, fostering design of reusable and recyclable products and materials, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The agreement also would call for international collaboration to help developing countries access technology as well as promote scientific and technical cooperation.
The global chemical industry, producers of the world's plastic, backs the plan for a treaty. In a statement, the International Council of Chemical Associations says UNEA's mandate for the accord 'provides governments with the flexibility to identify binding and voluntary measures across the full lifecycle of plastics, while recognizing there is no single approach to solving this global challenge.
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