After West Blast, Chemical Stockpiles Scrutinized

NEW BRAUNFELS — Off a dirt road connected to ever-flowing Interstate 35, a little metal sign on a wooden fence is the only indication of what lies ahead. Nearby, Buckley Powder, a mining and construction supply company, stores large quantities of ammonium nitrate, the source of the explosion at fertilizer depot that killed at least 14 people and injured hundreds more last month in West.

In 2012, according to state records, Buckley Powder had as much as 90,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate in bins at this Central Texas plant — stored, according to Howard Wichter, Buckley’s chief financial officer, under conditions in which “nothing can happen to it.”

At a Country Fare restaurant tucked inside a truck stop not far from the bins, Lisa Slickerman, a waitress, said people who lived in the community nearby knew little about what was stored at the plant, but perhaps should have, especially after the West explosion.

“Nobody talks about it,” she said.

“I thought they just sold rocks and dirt,” another waitress chimed in.

The facility is one of more than 110 across the state that report storing 10,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate or more at a time. Some companies hold it in powder form, like the depot in West, which in 2012 reported storing 540,000 pounds of the chemical. Others store it in a liquid solution, which is a much less volatile form, said Charles Mitchell, a professor of soil sciences at Auburn University.

The responsibility for overseeing these facilities varies. Some, like Buckley, which supplies materials used for blasting at rock quarries and construction sites, are inspected by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Others, like Adair Grain, which owned the West storage site, are subject to inconsistent scrutiny by a long list of state and federal agencies, said Neil Carman, director of the clean air program at the state’s chapter of the Sierra Club.

As the authorities continue to investigate the cause of the West explosion, and state and federal lawmakers discuss whether new regulations and greater oversight are needed, stockpiles of chemicals stored in communities across the state are the subject of intense concern.

A patchwork of regulations, generated by municipal, state and federal authorities, has led to almost exclusively local control over disaster preparation. “If I have a plant near my house, do I know that they have a plan?” said state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, the chairman of the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee. “The public needs to know who to go to and who to ask for a plan, so it brings attention to these facilities.”

“It’s just ludicrous. I think it’s a pattern of lax regulation in Texas," Carman said, "and it’s surprising, given the number of industrial plants.”

At the federal level, safety and accident prevention falls to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which according to an agency fact sheet oversees more than seven million workplaces and last inspected the West depot in 1985. The Environmental Protection Agency requires companies to report their methods of handling certain dangerous chemicals, but not ammonium nitrate. And the Department of Homeland Security keeps track of facilities that hold ammonium nitrate, but the agency did not know about the West facility, which had not reported to it. According to a department spokesman, Peter Boogaard, the agency is currently investigating whether the West facility should have submitted documentation of its ammonium nitrate.

At the state level, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality focuses on pollution and air quality, not accident prevention. The Office of the State Chemist checks the composition of feed and fertilizer for consumers, and whether explosives are behind fences and locked doors. The primary responsibility for tracking potentially dangerous chemicals in Texas falls to the Department of State Health Services, but Commissioner David Lakey told lawmakers at a hearing this month that the agency did “not have authority related to the regulation of these chemicals.” Its role is as a data depository, Lakey said, suggesting that regulations are the responsibility of local officials like fire chiefs and city councils in the form of fire and safety codes.

Those local officials are also responsible for preparing communities for disaster prevention, Steve McCraw, the director of the state’s Department of Public Safety, testified at the same hearing. “There’s no orchestrated, overarching effort to educate people about what’s in their areas,” he said. “It’s local level, not state down.”

McCraw’s department oversees a statewide network of 270 local emergency-planning committees, which operate differently in every county, and bring together public officials and industry leaders to develop safety plans. “The best experts are on the ground,” said W. Nim Kidd of who oversees emergency management for the DPS.

Amarillo knows the importance of local involvement in disaster planning firsthand. High on the Texas plains, the city is home to several heavy industry and petrochemical facilities — including the largest repository of ammonium nitrate in the state — and has adapted to the risk. The city’s fire department includes a hazmat team, which drills to prepare for specific threats. Sonja Gross, a community relations coordinator for the city, said the regional planning committee met quarterly to work on disaster preparation and prevention.

A fertilizer depot in the northeast quadrant of the city, owned by the multinational company Gavilon, reported an average daily stockpile of more than 2.1 million pounds of a liquid ammonium-nitrate mixture in 2012.

The fertilizer at the Gavilon facility is stored as a liquid with the organic chemical urea, which experts say ordinarily poses little combustion risk. But while the solution is much safer than ammonium nitrate stored in a powder form, explosions at similar facilities — as a consequence of spills or misused equipment — are not unheard of.

In Amarillo, as in New Braunfels, many who live in the industrial area near the fertilizer facility say they had no idea about the chemical stockpile next door and are concerned, even if the risks were comparatively low.

“They should have let us know" in some way, said Judy Watson, manager of the Red Rock Saloon, a bar down the street from the plant. “A lot of people live here. A lot of homeless people sleep here, too.”

The neighborhood isn’t unfamiliar with industrial accidents; in March, a warehouse containing propane tanks — less than a third of a mile from the Gavilon facility — erupted in flames when an employee spilled flammable liquid near an open-flame portable heater, according to the Amarillo Fire Department. Casey Essery, who lives on the same block as the warehouse, recalled watching the crackling flames multiply from his house.

But many are pragmatic about the risks. David Bernhardt, the owner of the Adult Video Gallery at the Paramount, across the street from the Gavilon depot, said he was unfazed by the tanks’ presence: “It’s one of those things that comes with being in an industrial part of town.”

An appreciation for the benefits and hazards of industry may explain why some, including state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, remain reluctant simply to call for more oversight of Texas’ industrial facilities.

“In our part of the state, because it’s been very heavy in oil and gas production and plastics and fertilizers,” Seliger said, "a lot of lessons have been learned” on the importance of setting and enforcing regulations to ensure safe practices.

In New Braunfels, home of Buckley Powder, Lynn Lindsay, the local emergency-management coordinator, said Comal County’s committee had little financing and did not meet regularly. “We are actively working to rectify the situation,” said Lindsay, who is also a courthouse administrator. “We have active relationships with first responders, but it’s a matter of tying it all together.”

Lindsay said New Braunfels residents had expressed more concerns since the West explosion, and he is trying to develop a database of chemicals in facilities across the county so first responders know what to do in case of an emergency.

He said the Legislature could consider creating standards for reporting or directing an agency to list best practices for first responders.

State Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, said there was “a point at which you can overregulate” companies that store dangerous chemicals and that many large manufacturing companies have their own emergency preparation plans.

“I think we’re doing a good job,” she said. “Just periodically something happens that’s not predictable.”

And whether heightened public disclosure will happen is already a subject of debate. "I have the right to know where these chemicals are in my community,” Rep. Pickett said at a recent hearing. "But 9/11 happened, and there’s a balance. I understand that.”

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Source: Texas Tribune (Hooks, 5/10)

West Fertilizer Plant Pushed For 'Exemption' From Safety Rules, Targeted Workplace Inspections

The Texas fertilizer plant that blew up on April 17, killing at least 15 people, appears to have been claiming an arcane exemption that allowed it to avoid targeted workplace inspections and safety requirements and enter a “streamlined prevention program” with environmental regulators, a government spokesman confirmed.

The owner of the facility near Waco, West Chemical and Fertilizer, apparently determined that the exemption — a few words advocated by industry groups, including The Fertilizer Institute, as part of a 20-year-old regulation — applied. In the wake of the deadly blast in West, Texas, last month, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating whether this claim was justified, an OSHA spokesman said.

By claiming the exemption, the company became subject to other, less stringent requirements and avoided certain OSHA and Environmental Protection Agency rules.

West Chemical and Fertilizer did not respond to requests for comment.

The interlocking web of company-claimed exceptions has implications beyond a small town in Central Texas. Sites across a host of industries housing large amounts of dangerous chemicals could claim they sell primarily to end users and avoid stricter regulation, though the number of facilities invoking this exemption is unclear. A representative for a company storing toxic chlorine gas, for example, wrote to OSHA in 2005 to clarify that the exemption applied to the site.

“It’s a major flaw,” said Bryan Haywood, an Ohio consultant who advises companies on the safe use of dangerous substances. “This incident’s going to get a lot of people’s interest into how people are squirming out of [stricter requirements].”

Closely related OSHA and EPA rules require facilities using large quantities of hazardous substances to take preventive steps and plan for accidents. West Chemical and Fertilizer had enough anhydrous ammonia — a chemical that attacks the eyes, skin and respiratory system — to require it to follow OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard, issued more than two decades ago.

But the standard contains what is known as the “retail exemption.” The Fertilizer Institute spoke out in favor of the exemption while the rule was being developed. Soon after the rule became final, the institute asked OSHA to confirm that it would not apply to facilities that store and blend fertilizer and sell it primarily to end users, often farmers.

OSHA responded that a fertilizer facility could indeed avoid the strictures of the rule as long as more than half of the company’s sales were to end users. OSHA, however, does not check on the validity of an exemption unless it inspects the site, an agency spokesman confirmed.

The Fertilizer Institute said in a statement to the Center for Public Integrity that it agreed with OSHA when the agency concluded in 1992 that retail facilities “did not present the same degree of hazard to employees as other workplaces covered by the proposal.”

But the institute added, “While the cause of the West, Texas, explosion has yet to be determined, we will re-examine our stance if necessary when the report on the cause is made final.”

OSHA is also investigating whether the West plant was covered by a legislative rider that makes sites with fewer than 10 employees in industries with low reported injury rates off-limits for regular inspections, an agency spokesman said. The site had not been inspected since 1985.

Invocation of the “retail exemption” can begin a chain reaction of less stringent standards. The EPA’s program for designating the risk posed by a facility relies, in part, on the site’s standing with OSHA. The amount of anhydrous ammonia stored at West Chemical and Fertilizer normally would have placed the facility in the EPA category requiring extensive preventive measures and accident-response plans. But because the site claimed the OSHA exemption, it qualified for a “streamlined prevention program” under the EPA’s Risk Management Plan program, known as RMP.

The agency said in a statement that it “reviewed the RMP from the facility to determine the RMP was complete and correct.” Asked whether it verified the basis for placing the site in a lower-risk category — its exemption from the OSHA rule based on its sales records — the EPA did not respond.

This EPA designation, along with the site’s lack of a history of accidents or recent inspections, removed it from a list of facilities subject to an OSHA special inspection program targeting locations using large amounts of hazardous substances, such as anhydrous ammonia.

It is unclear how many facilities enjoy more relaxed regulation as a result of their self-designation as retailers, but Haywood said the number could be large. “A lot of these businesses like in West, Texas, they’re everywhere,” he said. “They’re in every small farming community in the country.”

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Source: Huffington Post (Hamby, 5/3)

Heavy use of herbicide Roundup linked to health dangers: study

Heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers, according to a new study.

The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.

Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says. We "have hit upon something very important that needs to be taken seriously and further investigated," Seneff said.

Environmentalists, consumer groups and plant scientists from several countries have warned that heavy use of glyphosate is causing problems for plants, people and animals.

The EPA is conducting a standard registration review of glyphosate and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if glyphosate use should be limited. The study is among many comments submitted to the agency.

Monsanto is the developer of both Roundup herbicide and a suite of crops that are genetically altered to withstand being sprayed with the Roundup weed killer.

These biotech crops, including corn, soybeans, canola and sugarbeets, are planted on millions of acres in the United States annually. Farmers like them because they can spray Roundup weed killer directly on the crops to kill weeds in the fields without harming the crops.

Roundup is also popularly used on lawns, gardens and golf courses.

Monsanto and other leading industry experts have said for years that glyphosate is proven safe, and has a less damaging impact on the environment than other commonly used chemicals.

Jerry Steiner, Monsanto's executive vice president of sustainability, reiterated that in a recent interview when questioned about the study.

"We are very confident in the long track record that glyphosate has. It has been very, very extensively studied," he said.

Of the more than two dozen top herbicides on the market, glyphosate is the most popular. In 2007, as much as 185 million pounds of glyphosate was used by U.S. farmers, double the amount used six years ago, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.

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Source: YahooNews (AP, 4/25)

History of Safety Violations at Texas Fertilizer Plant

The residents of West, Texas are recovering from a horrific industrial accident that took the lives of at least 14 people, many of whom were volunteer firefighters, and wounded hundreds of others, some severely. Most tragically of all, the blast, heard from up to 40 miles away, could have been prevented entirely had proper safety precautions been in place at the plant. The fact that they weren’t, and government agencies failed to act, is a simultaneous indictment of valuing money over people and the critical need for reform at agencies charged with the safety of workers and the environment.

This timeline of inspections, violations and fines at the West Fertilizer Company will shock you:

1985: Last Occupational Health and Safety (OSHA) inspection.

OSHA, the government agency charged with looking out for worker health, last visited the plant almost 30 years ago. One serious and two additional violations, for which the company was fined a whopping $30, were found during the site visit. Why the long delay? The United States has over seven million workplaces, and OSHA’s inspectors, of which there are only 2,000 to cover the whole country, can’t keep up due to a lack of training and funding.

The sequester has only made this worse, by limiting accessibility of critically-needed funds for hiring and training inspectors, holding more random inspections and keeping workplaces safe. Consequently, OSHA tends to inspect only when there’s been a complaint, which means that a worker has to be brave enough to file one. Even with anonymous whistleblower laws to protect them, workers are well aware of the risks of reprisal.

2006: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) site visit and fines.

After receiving complaints about air quality at the site, government representatives noted that the company lacked permits for its two 12,000 gallon anhydrous ammonia (a flammable and toxic substance) tanks as well as for loading and storing dry components of fertilizer. A notice was issued to ask the company to get into compliance with the permits, which it did.

The EPA also expressed concerns about the West Fertilizer Company’s Risk-Management Program (RMP), required for such facilities. These concerns included worries that the plan was outdated, and that it had no documentation regarding what it intended to do in order to address safety concerns. A new plan was filed five years later to get in compliance. Amazingly, the plant claimed that it didn’t have any explosive or flammable materials on site, and didn’t list fire among potential safety risks in the workplace.

2007: Final TCEQ site visit.

The final followup visit regarding the earlier air quality complaint was also the last time workplace safety officials came to the site. Due to the plant’s comparatively small size, it was rarely inspected, with regulators focusing on getting inspectors to larger facilities and those that received complaints. It’s possible that TCEQ inspectors might not have visited the site at all in 2006 and 2007 if a member of the public hadn’t complained about an unpleasant odor.

2012: U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration fine.

Last year, the company was fined $10,000 for failing to have an adequate security plan in place for the transportation of hazardous materials. As is common with government fines, the amount was negotiated down by almost half: it paid just $5,250 after agreeing that it would embark on a course of corrective action to address the problem.

2013: Office of the State Chemist site visit.

Texas’ Office of the State Chemist focuses on materials blending, labeling and purity. Inspectors found no problems during a site visit in April, but they also weren’t looking for workplace safety violations, of which they undoubtedly would have found many. The fact that regulators visited the site 10 days before the explosion and didn’t notice anything that might draw concern highlights how harried many officials are as they work quickly to get from site to site, focusing on the obvious facets of their jobs without taking a step back. Chemists inspecting the plant should have been wondering about the conditions there.

Think this is bad? Ramit Plushnick-Masti and Jack Gillum, reporting for the AP, note that: “There were no sprinklers. No firewalls. No water deluge systems.” Without such basic fire suppression systems, once the plant started to go, it was almost unstoppable, and the fire spread quickly through the facility without any walls to keep it in check. This made the accident even more devastating than it could have been, and endangered the lives of first responders who arrived on scene to help victims.

An investigation is ongoing into the circumstances of this terrible event, but the outcome of that investigation is already obvious: overworked government agencies failed to catch a serious safety problem, and negligence on the part of a factory owner resulted in the development of hazardous conditions.

The question is: will he be held accountable, and will Congress take a critically-needed lesson here and increase funding to government agencies charged with our safety?

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Source: Care2 (Smith, 4/20)

Houston mayor moves ahead on texting while driving ban

As promised by Mayor Annise Parker earlier this month, Houston City Council on Wednesday will consider an ordinance against texting while driving.

The mayor announced April 1 that she would present an ordinance to the council if the Texas Legislature failed to enact a statewide ban on texting while driving.

Although the Legislature is still in session, the mayor is moving ahead with a measure to prohibit the use of wireless communication devices for texting while driving.

Violators would be subject to a $500 fine.

The text of the ordinance notes that researchers at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute have released the first published work in the United States that examines texting while driving in an actual driving environment.

According to that research, a driver's reaction time is doubled when distracted by reading or sending a text message and drivers who faced a flashing light when texting were 11 times more likely to miss the flashing light, among other findings.

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Source: Houston Chron

Teen to Be Tried as Adult in Texas Van Crash

A South Texas judge ruled Wednesday that a 16-year-old boy accused of killing nine illegal immigrants in a crash while fleeing Border Patrol should be prosecuted as an adult.

Hidalgo County District Judge Mario Ramirez said prosecutors had shown Junior Benjamin Rodriguez was sophisticated enough to be tried as an adult and that it was important to send a message to other teens who would consider smuggling immigrants and running from authorities. Ramirez later arraigned the teen as an adult on nine counts of murder and set bond at $25,000 per count.

Ramirez ordered reporters to not photograph Rodriguez, publish the names of federal agents and other witnesses who testified in the case or report in detail any evidence from this week's proceeding.

The Associated Press plans to appeal the judge's order.

"We're very troubled by this act of prior restraint in the courtroom today, and we plan to pursue all of our available legal remedies," said Laura Malone, the AP's interim general counsel.

Rodriguez was 15 last April when authorities say he fled Border Patrol in Palmview while driving a minivan packed with 17 illegal immigrants. A Border Patrol agent testified at a hearing last year that another person had bailed out when Rodriguez was initially stopped, but then sped off when the agent approached the van.

What happened next is disputed. A witness testified last year that he saw a Border Patrol vehicle bump the van before it crashed, sending immigrants flying onto the ground. But the Border Patrol agent testified last year the van had already crashed on a highway frontage road by the time he arrived.

On Wednesday, the third day of the hearing, a juvenile probation officer testified that his department recommended the boy should be transferred to the adult justice system due to the severity of the crime.

But a psychologist testifying for the defense said that a 15-year-old is poorly equipped to consider all consequences of his actions, particularly in a stressful situation. She said sending the boy into the adult system would be harmful for him and the community.

Prosecutors hammered the point that if Rodriguez had not fled Border Patrol the immigrants he was carrying would still be alive and he would likely be free. Rodriguez is a U.S. citizen.

"They (smuggling organizations) continue to use juveniles because they know the consequences are less serious for them," said prosecutor Amy Ortega.

In his closing statement, defense attorney Jaime Aleman asked the judge to differentiate between intent and an accident.

"It was a chaos of the moment act," Aleman said. "This was not an intentional act."

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Source: ABC News (AP, 3/28)

Rogue Dentist May Have Exposed 7,000 Patients to HIV, Hepatitis

The Tulsa Health Department is warning 7,000 patients of a local dentist's office that they could have contracted HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C from poor sterilization practices.

Dr. Wayne Harrington, an oral surgeon with a practice in Tulsa, Okla., is being investigated by the state dental board, the state bureau of narcotics and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency because one of his patients recently tested positive for hepatitis C and HIV without known risk factors other than receiving dental treatment.

Upon hearing of the infected patient, the Oklahoma Board of Dentistry conducted a surprise inspection of Harrington's practice on March 18, allegedly finding numerous problems, including regular use of a rusty set of instruments on patients with known infections, and the practice of pouring bleach on wounds until they "turned white."

Calls to Harrington's office were directed to an operator, who told ABC News the clinic no longer took voicemails. The operator said patients were being referred to another clinic, but did not disclose the clinic's name.

Susan Rogers, executive director of Oklahoma's Board of Dentistry, called the incident a "perfect storm." On top of his many violations in sanitary practice, the dentist was a Medicaid provider, which means he had a high proportion of patients with HIV or hepatitis, she said.

Harrington and his staff told investigators that he treated a "high population of known infectious disease carrier patients," according to a complaint filed by the Oklahoma Board of Dentistry.

He allegedly allowed unlicensed dental assistants to administer medication, according to the complaint. These assistants were left to decide which medications to administer, and how much was appropriate.

Drug cabinets were unlocked and unsupervised during the day, and Harrington did not keep an inventory log of drugs, some of which were controlled substances. One drug vial expired in 1993.

"During the inspections, Dr. Harrington referred to his staff regarding all sterilization and drug procedures in his office," the complaint read. "He advised, 'They take care of that. I don't.'"

Harrington allegedly re-used needles, contaminating drugs with potentially harmful bacteria and trace amounts of other drugs, according to the complaint. Although patient-specific drug records indicated that they were using morphine in 2012, no morphine had been ordered since 2009.

The instruments for infected patients was given an extra dip in bleach in addition to normal cleaning methods, but they had red-brown rust spots, indicating that they were "porous and cannot be properly sterilized," according to the complaint.

The Tulsa Health Department said Harrington's patients will receive letters by mail notifying them of the risk and steps to obtain free-of-charge testing. While 7,000 patients may have been exposed, Joseph Perz, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it's "extremely rare" to see dental transmission of HIV and hepatitis B or C. In July 2012, 8,000 Coloradans were notified that their dentist had reused needles, potentially exposing them to the blood-borne viruses. But not a single case was identified, according to the CDC.

Dental transmission is not impossible, however. Perz cited a dental fair three years ago in which hepatitis B was transmitted between patients. In July 2012, more than 1,800 veterans who received dental care at a St. Louis VA Medical Center were warned that improper cleaning of dental tools may have exposed them to HIV and hepatitis.

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Source: Good Morning America (Lupkin, 3/29)