CENtral Science

Friday round-up

Chemical health and safety news from the past week:

• Related to the Gulf oil spill:
  • BP texas refinery had huge toxic release just before gulf blowout (more detail than the story I linked to a few weeks ago)
  • New BP data show 20% of Gulf spill responders exposed to chemical that sickened Valdez workers
  • Petition urges Obama admin to protect Gulf spill cleanup workers
  • C&EN Finally, a full safety panel
  • C&EN Health risks in the Gulf
  • C&EN EPA report adds to dispersant toxicity data
• New worker safety bill introduced in House, protects whistleblowers, targets bad actors
• Waiting for OSHA report cards on state OSH programs
• House of destruction: Colorado plant to destroy chemical weapons continues to evolve
• Imperial Sugar to pay fines in deadly Georgia explosion case
• Worker dies following tank car explosion in Colorado (“The worker was on a 21,000-gallon tank car and was using welding equipment near an open a vent, when the explosion occurred, she said. The tank car contained water, gasoline, diesel, and/or oil. Investigators believe the vapors ignited.”)
• Five injured after exposure to chemical near Vernal, Utah (hydrogen sulfide on an oil field)
• Blaze at Vertellus Specialties chemical plant warehouse in New Jersey; no injuries reported (“The building was ‘primarily used’ for storage of non-hazardous materials for disposal — such as material from castor oil processing, company officials said. But a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection said hazardous materials were stored in the warehouse, and sulfuric acid leaked from some of the containers that had been damaged in the fire.”)
• Fire at Stepan Chemical Company plant in New Jersey raises concerns (“a 55-gallon tub of about 200 pounds of solid sulfur was found smoldering”)
• 2 workers badly burned at Guardian Automotive Trim factory in Indiana (“were using a chemical to clean a paint booth Monday when a halogen light was knocked onto the floor and ignited the fumes”)
• Railroad fire under control in Missouri (“the toluene rail car sparked a nearby car, carrying animal fat, and then a third car, carrying oil”)
• Chemical spill danger level upgraded in Idaho (“‘It’s a very large area of 5-gallon buckets, different storage containers containing chemicals in different states of leeching out of buckets [that are] rusting,’ said Captain Travis Williams of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office. The homeowner, Max Spatig, says the chemicals are just ordinary household paints and primers, nothing hazardous about them.”)
• Delhi University, in India, cleans up act to make its labs safer
• British lab technician knocked out student with chloroform (the student “was pursuaded to cover her face after Shreeve told her her that there had been an oil spill. He said she would have need to use a protective substance to breath safely”)
• Leaking nuclear waste fills former salt mine in Germany
• Smithfield industrial fire in Australia (“drums of solvents and floor adhesives were exploding as firefighters arrived on the scene”)
• Other C&EN stories:
  • Air pollution action (EPA targets smog, particulate matter and agrees to review hazardous pollution limits)
  • U.K. airborne dioxin levels plummeted in the 1990s
  • White House boosts biolab security
  • Carboxylation made simple (method directly adds CO₂ to aromatic C–H bonds without the need for alkyllithium or Grignard reagents)
  • Yucca Mountain decision blocked
  • California targets chemicals in products

And, of course, there were incidents involving pool chemicals, groundskeeping sheds, and cleaning supplies.

Traffic hazards: styrene in Pennsylvania, oil-and-water labeled as an oxidizer in Georgia, an unknown substance in Illinois, chemicals for relining piping in Massachusetts, and anhydrous ammonia in Ohio.