AP photo by Tom Hindman, Charleston Daily Mail.

A year ago tonight, Bayer CropScience worker Bill Oxley went into the Institute plant’s Methomyl unit to investigate a sudden spike inside a waste treatment tank. Another worker, Barry Withrow, was dispatched to help.

At about 10:35 p.m., Oxley and Withrow were somewhere in the vicinity of the problem tank, called the “residue treater.” Relief valves suddenly opened, sending a rush of chemicals out of the tank’s emergency vents. But a reaction inside the tank had already spun out of control, overwhelming the vents.  The tank ruptured – flushing 2,500 gallons of toxic liquid solvents out – and rocketed into the air. Fire erupted in the unit, and the tank crashed through a maze of piping and other equipment, only by chance missing a nearby tank of deadly methyl isocyanate, or MIC.

Withrow, a 45-year-old father of two from Cross Lanes, was killed almost instantly. Oxley, a 58-year-old Scott Depot resident with two sons and two grandchildren, died 41 days later at a burn unit in Pittsburgh.

Tonight at 7 at West Virginia State University, the campus adjacent to the plant, the Institute group People Concerned About MIC plans a candlelight vigil to Remember those who lost their lives, those who protected us, and the dangers that still exist. Bayer officials don’t plan to attend, and say they’re holding a small, private memorial for plant workers.

Earlier this week, Bayer made the surprise announcement that it was taking a major step toward reducing those dangers: The company plans to spend $25 million over the next year on plant renovations that will reduce the Institute facility’s stockpile of deadly MIC by 80 percent.

It was in many ways a remarkable move, given the quarter-century, on-and-off efforts by local residents and activists — both local and international — to push various owners of the Institute plant to get rid of its 240,000-pound supply of MIC.

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UPDATED, 2:30 P.M.: Bayer announced it plans to reduce MIC stockpiles by 80 percent at the Institute plant.

Here’s the company’s announcement.

Bayer CropScience said this morning that it plans to announce “significant changes” at its Institute chemical plant during a press conference later today at the facility.

Plant manager Nick Crosby and Bayer spokesman Tom Dover weren’t returning phone calls, but Bayer officials were busy making calls to state and local political leaders — including Gov. Joe Manchin — about their plans. They also talked to Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper about the announcement, but even Carper wasn’t saying what he was told.

The announcement is timed to occur two days before the one-year anniversary of the Aug. 28, 2008, explosion that killed two workers at the Bayer facility.

Recall that Bayer has not yet completed reconstruction of the Methomyl pesticide unit, and said during a media day in May that company officials were still reviewing the explosion to see what — if any — safety changes needed to be made. At the time, Crosby did say that the review included examining the location of an MIC “day tank” that the federal Chemical Safety Board said was located dangerously close to the explosion site:

We’ve got to determine what the risk is, and determine if we’re going to mitigate it.

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