CENtral Science

Friday round-up

To start the round-up today, I’d like to highlight a C&EN story from last year, Leather from another era, by my colleague Jean-François Tremblay. The story is about tanneries in Bangladesh and the hazards they present to workers and the environment. Jean-François just won an award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for the piece. If you didn’t read it already, I’d say it’s definitely worth a few minutes to read it now. If you did read it before and are wondering whether the tanneries are actually relocating and improving, the answer seems to be not yet–Jean-François pointed me toward this Aug. 3 story from bdnews24.com, which says that the tanneries are still waiting for the Central Effluent Treatment Plant to be built.

That aside, it’s been a relatively quiet week for chemical health and safety news. Here are a few headlines:

• CSB issues final report on Xcel incident that killed five in a hydroelectric plant tunnel: “the causes of the accident included (1) a lack of planning and training for hazardous work by Xcel and its contractor, RPI Coating, Inc., (2) Xcel’s selection of RPI despite its having the lowest possible safety rating (zero) among competing contractors, and (3) allowing volatile flammable liquids to be introduced into a permit-required confined space without necessary special precautions”; CSB also released a letter to the company (pdf) regarding the company’s behavior during the investigation and a video on the dangers of confined spaces
• Illegal hazmat focus of Can-Am blitz: Interpol reports 85 hazmat-related violations identified during a recent coordinated enforcement effort in New York, Michigan, and Ontario.
• C&EN EPA to control surfactants, flame retardant, dyes
• In Australia, Firefighter maimed in a factory explosion sues over chemical blaze: “The factory, which had just passed a council safety inspection, did not have external HAZCHEM signs despite using potentially explosive chemicals.”
• Chemicals combine at Alabama garbage warehouse: muratic acid (muriatic acid?), calcium chloride, sodium hypochlorite, and calcium hydroxide

Leaks and spills: sulfuric acid (at a metal finishing company, discovered when a burglar alarm went off), ammonia (at a refrigeration plant, 29 people hospitalized), hydrochloric acid (at least 8,000 gal at a water treatment facility), mercury (“along a path that stretched up the basement stairs and outside the house”), chlorine (guessing this was pool chemicals), chlorine AND sulfuric acid, some sort of resin, a fungicide, liquid oxygen, diesel fuel (“a tractor trailer lost a tire, and shards from the tire apparently ruptured the truck’s diesel 125 gallon fuel tank”), and sulfur dioxide (from an old refrigerator).

Friday round-up

Chemical health & safety news from the past week:

• From the blogosphere: OSHA at forty: New strategies for old challenges, Can OSHA ban a dangerous work practice?, and Some thoughts on online training courses
• OSHA is also seeking input on which chemicals the agency should target for new or updated permissible exposure limits
• From C&EN: A better way to measure chemical risks (look at biotransformation rather than hydrophobicity) and Recasting TSCA
• NSF International and the National School Supply and Equipment Association collaborate to develop a national standard for K-12 school equipment: ”to certify health, safety and environmental aspects of products and eequipment used in the educational environment,” including lab equipment
• Inquest into a 2002 explosion that killed a member of a British-American team investigating home-made bombs: Jupp inquest hears of  ’no lab tests’ of fatal explosive and blast mixture ‘not authorized’
• UConn physics professor Juha Javanainen let son make bombs: ”He specifically warned his son not to manufacture acetone peroxide because it is very unstable, he told police. Nevertheless, he caught the boy cooling the ingredients to make acetone peroxide in a downstairs refrigerator. That fact that Javanainen failed to monitor his son’s experiments after that discovery is one of the reasons he was arrested, the warrant states.”
• 10 gallons of hydrogen peroxide shut down several blocks of New York’s Times Square
• Chemical spill preempted fire that killed employee at Quad/Graphics in Tennessee: “While working with a forklift inside the factory Friday, Mitchell had punctured a line containing toluene, a flammable chemical used in the printing process, said Dickson Fire Chief Richard Greer. The chemical had spilled onto his body, but he was able to climb a flight of stairs and shut off a secondary valve, preventing a potentially huge chemical leak at the factory, the chief said. … Mitchell then drove the forklift to the shower room to remove the chemical from his body, but in doing so, a spark ignited the flammable liquid, and burned him on more than 98 percent of his body.”)
• Fire at Tronox chemical plant in Hamilton, Miss. in the sodium chlorate storage facility
• Two 18-wheelers tangled and shut down a stretch of the Gulf Freeway for hours, but no one injured: ”One vehicle, a Fed Ex truck, was hauling two trailers and carrying both a powdery marine pollutant and a liquid pesticide. The other vehicle contained plastic food service trays, officials said. Both trucks caught fire. The flames reignited around 10:30 a.m., authorities said, prompting both sides of the freeway to be closed. … Crews from at least two environmental services companies were called in. The effort entailed sopping up contaminated dousing water with absorbent material and vacuuming some excess liquid and other debris, DuPont said.”
• In Australia, Students, teachers hospitalised after science experiment mishap involving magnesium powder

On the “household” chemical front:

• In the U.K., Children treated after Twickenham school chemical leak after someone poured 100 L of sodium hypochlorite and sodium bisulfate down a drain
• Chlorine explosions prompt safety concerns (there are a few of these incidents in the news EVERY WEEK–let’s all pay attention to Charlotte, N.C. Fire Department Battalion Chief Phil Bosche, shall we? “If you put the wrong chemical in the wrong environment in the wrong place, a lot of things can happen and an explosion is entirely possible”)

Leaks and spills: anhydrous ammonia, hydrochloric acid, muriatic acid, brake fluid and ink (from a FedEx truck–for some reason someone initially thought it was HCl), formaldehyde, more formaldehyde, chlorine (that shut down nine buildings at Caltech), methacryolyl chloride (which led to a building evacuation at Tufts), xylene hydroxchloride, more ammonia, agricultural lime (plus some diesel fuel), an unidentified pesticide, even more hydrochloric acid, a mile-long trail of fertilizer, “a corrosive liquid known as UN1760″ (that would be the Department of Transportation number for “Corrosive liquids, not otherwise specified”), and unspecified flammable liquids.

Yes, that is the sixth and final word up there in the photo. If you can’t see the photo, the word is “CENtral.” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look here. If you’re going to Boston, enjoy the meeting!

Friday round-up

Chemical health and safety news from the past week:

• Not chemical but possibly useful to our audience: Got a green laser pointer? Make sure it has an infrared filter.
• C&EN OSHA slaps BP with $50.6 million for safety violations at the company’s Texas City, Texas, refinery
• C&EN EPA proposes rule to require chemical makers to provide data about production, processing, and use of their compounds every four years, substantiate claims that data submitted to EPA be protected as confidential business information
• EPA enters debate over toxic strawberry fumigant methyl iodide
• FAA proposes hazmat civil penalties against 12 companies: “the companies allegedly offered the hazardous material for transportation (or, in the cases of UPS and Federal Express, accepted it) when it was not packaged, marked, classed, described, labeled or in condition for shipment as required by regulations”
• University of Iowa physics and astronomy instructor burned by an explosion involving balloons filled with hydrogen and oxygen
• On the J&J Chemical fire in Georgia listed last week: Response to fire and chemical spill fell short, most agree
• Texas scrap yard worker cuts into cylinder, gets exposed to anhydrous ammonia–who disposed of the cylinder?
• In Ohio, Chemicals ignite in United Initiators’ wastewater skimming pond; the company makes organic peroxides (“You could smell the burning toxins,” said a worker from a nearby facility)
• Static electricity may have sparked Americhem chemical plant fire in Michigan; the company president thinks that a tanker that entered the company’s weighing facility around 3 p.m. Friday containing 500 gallons of mineral spirits exploded for some other reason; Sheriff’s officials credit unspecified safety measures for the fact that no one was hurt
• Hot weather led to methyl methacrylate spill at Wichita, Kan. plant–the chemical likely expanded due to warm weather and burst out of its barrel
• In Fresno, Calif., a 2,000 gallon hydrogen peroxide tank stared venting gas at the Univar USA plant, likely because of weather (“The plant has been shut down for the day, as firefighters continue to spray the tank in hopes of cooling it down. A 2,000 ft evacuation zone around the plant has been put into place.”)

Household

• Man, granddaughter hurt when pool chemicals explode after the grandfather mixed together two different chlorine products with different ingredients

International

• Australia: Workers at a uranium mine were exposed to ammonia fumes and kerosene-contaminated water
• India: In Bangalore, a fire at a company that manufactures melamine wood finish and thinners, possibly illegally located “in the middle of a busy commercial area”
• U.K.: In Sheffield, a hydrochloric acid leak at a wire manufacturer; in Tockwith, a fire at waste management company BCB Environmental Management