CENtral Science

Friday chemical safety round up

It’s baaaaaaack… Chemical health and safety news since the beginning of September:

• Enrico Uva discussed Why scary lab accidents happen at Science 2.0
• Labor organization IUE-CWA and the BlueGreen Alliance launched the Chemical Hazard & Alternatives Toolkit, or ChemHAT, which “allows workers to quickly look up 10,000 commonly used chemicals and see their acute and chronic health effects”; the organizations hope in the future to add information on safer alternatives
• AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety’s Process Safety Beacon for August focused on hot work hazards, September’s issue asked “What can I do? I’m just the operator!”, and July looked at emergency preparation
• OSHA news since the beginning of July:
  • Several agencies are holding a public meeting on Sept. 20-21 in Texas City, Tex., to discuss performance-based approaches to protect oil and gas industry workers
  • The agency awarded $10.7 million in safety and health training grants to 72 organizations; I searched for things lab-related and didn’t see anything, but if I missed something, let me know!
  • It also published removal criteria for employers in the Severe Violator Enforcement Program
  • OSHA and BP agreed to resolve 409 out of 439 citations for a 2005 explosion at its Texas City, Tex., refinery; BP agreed to pay $13 million in fines, down from $21 million originally assessed by OSHA
  • Other companies recently cited: Citgo Refining & Chemicals for hydrofluoric acid exposure; the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center Southwest for lead, cadmium, and beryllium exposure; Global Pyrotechnic Solutions for factors underlying a March explosion in which three workers were burned; Cardolite for formaldehyde exposure; hazardous waste disposal company Heritage-WTI for a variety of problems; Arkema for not developing safe work practices or reviewing operating procedures; Toxco for lead and cadmium exposure
• Its OSHA woes aside, Citgo is also facing $2 million in fines for Clean Air Act violations at a Corpus Christi, Tex., refinery
• Safety problems persist in India’s firecracker industry
• A United Nations report calls rising chemicals output worldwide a hazard: “risks are compounded by the steady shift in the production, use and disposal of chemical products from developed countries to emerging and developing economies, where safeguards and regulations are often weaker” and “estimated costs of poisonings from pesticides in sub-Saharan Africa now exceeds the total annual overseas development aid given to the region for basic health services, excluding HIV/AIDS”

Fires and explosions:

• Six workers died and 13 more were injured when a boiler containing hexane somehow ignited at a soap-oil factory in India
• Stored chemicals were the source of a fire at display filter manufacturer Homalite, in Delaware
• A Massachusetts Wisconsin high school teacher was “adding a very small amount of black powder to a beaker” when it ignited, burning her

Leaks, spills, and other exposures:

• A worker opened a wrong valve at a winery in California and subsequently died of ammonia exposure
• Sulfuric acid spilled at Embraer Aircraft Maintenance Services in Nashville, Tenn., burning two workers
• Hydrogen peroxide + water = steam release at a French nuclear plant, burning two workers
• Two California middle school students suffered minor burns in an experiment involving chlorine tablets and rubbing alcohol
• A Texas high school teacher and five students were taken to the hospital after something went awry in a biochemistry lab: “identifying proteins and amino acids. One of the last chemical compounds they used contained a small amount of cyanide, but [an assistant fire chief] said that fire investigator quickly ruled out the poisonous substance as a ‘primary player’ in the incident” although he wouldn’t say what the “unanticipated reaction” was

Not covered (most of the time): meth labs; ammonia leaks; incidents involving floor sealants, cleaning solutions, or pool chemicals; transportation spills; things that happen at recycling centers (dispose of your waste properly, people!); and fires from oil, natural gas, or other fuels.