Friday chemical safety round-up
Chemical health and safety news from the past week:
- John at Its the Rheo Thing posted about Rubber gloves – They’re not all the same
- Chemical security program stalls: DHS works to fix troubled antiterrorism initiative
- The Charleston, W.Va. Gazette, revealed more details of the Monsanto dioxin class-action settlement
Fires and explosions:
- Twenty gallons of isopropanol spilled and ignited at National Composite Center in Ohio, no one was injured
Leaks, spills, and other exposures:
- Hydrofluoric acid leaked in the alkylation unit of a Citgo refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas; the Chemical Safety Board was still investigating a 2009 fire and HF release at the same refinery and sent a team to look into the new one
- At StanChem in Connecticut, “chemicals were mixed, resulting in an aggressive reaction” and a spill of 200 gallons of…whatever it was
- Mercury spilled at an elementary school in Maryland, a high school in Indiana, and in the food in the cafeteria of a New York medical center (the state police and FBI are looking into the last one)
Not covered: meth labs; ammonia leaks; incidents involving floor sealants, cleaning solutions, or pool chemicals; transportation spills; and fires from oil, natural gas, or other fuels.
And yours truly is now off to Orlando for Pittcon! I’ll be speaking about lab safety on Sunday, in a symposium on “Looking Ahead to a New Era of Analytical Chemistry Education.” James Kaufman of the Laboratory Safety Institute will also facilitate a networking session on lab safety that day. On Tuesday, Just Another Electron Pusher blogger Christine Herman will facilitate a session on “Chemistry Careers Beyond the Bench,” and one of the panelists is C&EN Senior Editor Celia Arnaud.
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