1. catdynamics
  2. selection biases and risk assessment

selection biases and risk assessment

By catdynamics on March 12, 2007.

flicking across cnn.com, I see a propane train derailment and an oil well fire in Texas

is it heigtened awareness, broader reporting to fill cable news shows, or is there a higher incidence of petrochemical and industrial chemical accidents this year?

The EPA RMP*Info list of industrial accidents and sites is apparently confidential, although it was originally compiled for public information, but there is a summary of five year incidence in the late 90s in a public report.

Glancing through the data, there seem to be refinery/extraction accidents about once per week and transport/LNG accidents about once per month - now there have been several "recently", like the burst oil pipeline in Texas and a couple of spectacular chemical plant explosions this winter, but memory compresses events like that and it seems impossible to get an actual statistic on the rate of such events.
Not to mention that the "events" are hard to properly define as a prior - I suspect "telegenic" is not an EPA incident category.

Someone out there have actual access to the data?

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"The EPA RMP*Info list of industrial accidents and sites is apparently confidential ..."

We wouldn't want to embarrass any of our industry contributors, now would we?