Chemical Safety Board
cmonforton | February 15, 2016A host of failures led to the explosion of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate (FGAN) at the West Fertilizer Company on April 17, 2013. This disaster led to the death of 15 people. That’s what I heard during the Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) public meeting on January 28 at which their investigation report was released. I also heard sadness tinted with frustration from a victim of the disaster. She lost someone who was very close in the blast. She sat quietly behind me at the meeting. Her demeanor was private. I’ll call her Theresa.
Like me, Theresa was taking notes on the investigators'…
cmonforton | July 23, 2015[Updated 7/24/15 below]
I heard very troubling remarks yesterday from a member of the Chemical Safety Board. Mr. Manny Ehrlich said that he has a “fundamental philosophical disagreement” with the staff about making recommendations for new safety regulations. Mr. Ehrlich accepted a job and was confirmed by the Senate to make recommendations to prevent catastrophic chemical incidents. Now he tells us that he is taking an entire category of fixes off the table?
The Chemical Safety Board is modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). I know I’d be concerned if I heard members…
cmonforton | March 12, 2015Cronyism, retaliation, and abuse of power are just a few of the many unsavory terms and themes on full display at last week’s congressional hearing about the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB). It was the second time in less than 10 months that CSB chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso, PhD and board members have been called before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (Committee).
For me, and others in the worker health and safety community, it was disappointing and discouraging to watch the four-hour spectacle. Congress pays too little attention to the causes and toll of work-related…
cmonforton | November 24, 2014(Updates made 11/26/15 appear in [ ])
The Houston Chronicle’s Lise Olsen and Mark Collette continue their reporting of the November 15 incident at DuPont’s La Porte, TX facility that killed four workers. Wade Baker, 60, Gilbert "Gibby" Tisnado, 48, Robert Tisnado, 39, and Crystle Rae Wise 53, were asphyxiated by a release of methyl mercaptan [related to a faulty valve . A faulty valve may have been part of the problem. Alexandra Berzon at the Wall Street Journal reported the trouble may have started with a blockage in the methyl mercaptan line, and that the operation was not properly vented…
cmonforton | September 1, 2014Our Labor Day tradition continues with the third edition of The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2013 – Summer 2014. Liz Borkowski and I produce it to serve as a resource for activists, researchers, regulators and anyone else who wants a refresher on what happened in the previous 12 months on worker health and safety topics. We prepare it as a complement to the AFL-CIO’s excellent annual Death on the Job report which has been released each spring for the last 23 years.
We divide the report into three sections: Happenings at the federal level, activities in state and local…
egrossman | February 25, 2014On January 9, 2014 a leak was reported at Freedom Industries’ storage tanks on the banks of the Elk River just upstream of a water treatment plant that services tap water for about 300,000 residents in and around Charleston, West Virginia. The resulting release of at least 10,000 gallons of toxic chemicals used to clean coal contaminated the community’s water supply, making it unfit for use. More than a month later, it remains unclear if this water is truly safe to drink and what the health consequences of exposure to these chemicals may be.
But this is far from the only disastrous toxic…
lborkowski | February 20, 2014February 7th marked two grim anniversaries of explosions that demonstrate the toll of unsafe workplaces. On February 7, 2008, an explosion and fire at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, killed 14 workers and injured 28 others. On February 7, 2010, an explosion at the Kleen Energy facility in Middletown, Connecticut, six workers were killed and at least 50 others injured.
The US Chemical Safety Board investigated both explosions. It determined that the Imperial Sugar explosion was fueled by a massive accumulation of combustible sugar dust, and that the Kleen Energy…
cmonforton | February 6, 2014[June 25, 2014: Updated below]
Seven workers were fatally injured in April 2010 from an explosion and fire at a Tesoro petroleum refinery in Washington State. They were: Daniel J. Aldridge, 50; Matthew C. Bowen, 31; Darrin J. Hoines, 43; Matt Gumbel, 34; Lew Charles Janz, 41; Kathryn Powell, 29; and Donna Van Dreumel, 36. You won’t find their names listed, however, in the official investigation report prepared by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB).
Earlier this week, TPH contributor Lizzie Grossman reported on the CSB’s recent public meeting at which it released a draft of its investigation…
egrossman | February 4, 2014The city of Anacortes – population about 16,000 – sits on shores of Fidalgo Island, the eastern-most island in the San Juan archipelago, the string of islands clustered off the northwest coast of Washington State. Located at the western end of Skagit County, known regionally for its agriculture, Anacortes’ petrochemical plants – Tesoro and Shell refineries and a chemical plant recently acquired by the Canadian company ChemTrade -- together make up the city’s largest single-industry employer. On a rainy January evening, smoke plumes from these plants that sit near the water’s edge merge with…
lborkowski | July 29, 2013Celeste wrote earlier this month about a public meeting at which the US Chemical Safety Board would vote on whether to label several of their outstanding recommendations to OSHA as having seen unacceptable progress. I attended the day-long meeting, and thought the CSB staff and board members made a strong case for the “unacceptable” designations, which the board unanimously voted to adopt. Throughout the meeting, the CSB was careful to acknowledge the progress OSHA had made in addressing the hazards, the factors that impede effective OSHA action, and the preventability of explosions and other…
lborkowski | July 8, 2013Chemical Safety Board Chair Rafael Moure-Eraso testified before the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee regarding its preliminary findings on the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people in April. Ramit Plushnick-Masti reports for the Associated Press:
"The safety of ammonium nitrate fertilizer storage falls under a patchwork of U.S. regulatory standards and guidance — a patchwork that has many large holes," according to the report presented to the panel by Rafael Moure-Eraso, the board's chairman.
The board, which has no regulatory authority, recommended in…
cmonforton | May 23, 2013When they toured the devastation caused by the April 17 explosion at West Fertilizer, Texas' U.S. Senators pledged that investigators would get to the bottom of what happened. The disaster killed 15, injured hundreds of residents, and destroyed dozens of homes and buildings. Senator Ted Cruz said:
"We need to allow time for a careful investigation of what occurred. We all want to know what happened here."
Senator John Cornyn said:
"I'm confident there will be exactly the kind of review you're talking about on the local level, state level and the federal level. We have authorities from all…
cmonforton | September 6, 2012As Liz Borkowski noted on Tuesday, we started a new tradition this year to mark Labor Day in the U.S. We published The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2011 - Summer 2012. The 42-page report highlights some of the key research and activities in the U.S. on worker health and safety topics.
We know that many advocates, reporters and researchers look forward every April to the AFL-CIO’s Death on the Job report with its compilation of data on work-related injuries reported, number of federal and state inspections, violations cited, and penalties assessed. We set out to…
cmonforton | January 6, 2012Sheri Sangji, 23, earned a bachelors degree in chemistry from Pomona College in 2008, and dreamed of being an attorney. While awaiting word on her admission to law school, Sangji took a job in October 2008 as a research assistant in the laboratory of UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran. Three months later, Sangji was dead. She suffered severe burns on December 29 while working in Harran's lab with tert-butyllithium (tBuLi), a substance that will spontaneously ignite when exposed to air. Despite expert care provided at the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks, Sangji succumb to her…
cmonforton | August 19, 2010Earlier this month, Labor Secretary Solis proposed more than $16 million in penalties to 17 employers involved in the construction of the Kleen Energy Systems power plant in Middletown, Connecticut. The construction site was the scene of a massive explosion on the morning of February 7 in which Peter Chetulis, Ronald J Crabb, 42, Raymond Dobratz, 58, Chris Walters, 42, and Roy Rushton, 37 were killed; Kenneth Haskell, 37, later died from his injuries. More than 50 other individuals were injured and residents as far as 20 miles away felt the blast.
Investigations by the U.S. Chemical Safety…