AP photo by Tom Hindman, Charleston Daily Mail, of the Aug. 28, 2008 explosion and fire at Bayer CropScience in Institute, W.Va.

Last April, U.S. Chemical Safety Board Chairman John Bresland promised Kanawha Valley residents a complete investigation of the August 2008 explosion and fire that killed two Institute plant workers — and he made clear the CSB would get to the bottom of what kind of disaster might have happened that night.

Bresland told a congressional committee that it was vital for his agency to get to the bottom of the damage that could have occurred if a waste treatment tank had been rocketed into a nearby MIC storage vessel:

As far as we can determine, the direction the residue treater traveled
was a matter of random chance. The violent rupture of the vessel might
have propelled it horizontally in any direction or upward on an arc-like
trajectory.

Although the MIC tank and the blast mat escaped serious damage on August
28, there is reason for concern. This was potentially a serious near
miss, the results of which might have been catastrophic for workers,
responders and the public.

But now, as we reported in the Sunday Gazette-Mail, the CSB is greatly narrowing the scope of its investigation into the Bayer explosion and fire. Part of the reason is that Congress ordered the National Academy of Sciences to perform a thorough review of MIC use and storage at the plant.

But the board is also dropping portions of its investigation that aren’t going to be picked up by the NAS study.  Sunday’s Gazette-Mail story pointed out one example — the board’s decision not to do any real testing of the “blast blanket” that Bayer for years told Kanawha Valley residents would protect that MIC “day tank” from damage from any nearby explosions or fires.

Another example: The CSB has dropped any effort to try to detail and quantify the types and amounts of toxic chemicals released into the Kanawha Valley air by the explosion and fire. From the beginning — and still today — Bayer officials have tried to convince local residents that no dangerous chemicals were released. Bresland and board investigators said flatly that this wasn’t true:

I am very troubled by our observations of the inadequacy of Bayer’s emergency response and emergency communications. For example, the county’s 9-1-1 call center was told, fifteen minutes into the response, that no dangerous chemicals had been released. That information came from Bayer’s incident commander and was relayed by the Institute volunteer fire chief, who was also a Bayer employee.

That statement is clearly incorrect, since Methomyl is toxic, and its uncontrolled decomposition may release highly toxic byproducts. According to publicly available material safety data sheets for Methomyl, those decomposition products may include highly toxic chemicals such as methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide, acetontrile, carbon monoxide, dimethyl disulfide, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, and methyl thiocyanate.

In addition, it is likely that hazardous substances were released from the broken chemical pipes and vent systems.

Previously, board investigators said they were looking into these issues, and would provide more information in their final report. But now, they say trying to figure out some estimate of what went into the air that night is just too difficult — perhaps impossible — so they’re dropping the whole thing.

Perhaps the central player pushing the CSB this way is its lead investigator on the Bayer incident, John Vorderbrueggen (shown above). It’s interesting to compare what Bresland told Congress and the Kanawha Valley public to what Vorderbrueggen told me in a recent interview when asked why the CSB final report would not include an analysis of what could have happened if the MIC day tank had been compromised:

 Talking about hypothetical things that don’t occur is not meaningful to a past event. We have to address what the future is, that’s our purpose, not what could have happened. What could have happened is that the whole facility could have burned to the ground from fenceline to fenceline. Do we need to talk about that? No, because it didn’t happen. The need to discuss a hypothetical condition, especially when the future of that condition won’t be there is not germane to our charter.

It’s even more interesting to compare Vorderbrueggen’s comments  to the CSB’s actual charter, contained in the 1990 Clean Air Act, which says the board shall:

… Issue periodic reports to the Congress, Federal, State and local agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, concerned with the safety of chemical production, processing, handling and storage, and other interested persons recommending measures to reduce the likelihood or the consequences of accidental releases and proposing corrective steps to make chemical production, processing, handling and storage as safe and free from risk of injury as is possible and may include in such reports proposed rules or orders which should be issued by the Administrator under the authority of this section or the Secretary of Labor under the Occupational Safety and Health Act [29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.] to prevent or minimize the consequences of any release of substances that may cause death, injury or other serious adverse effects on human health or substantial property damage as the result of an accidental release;

And that the board:

… Is authorized to conduct research and studies with respect to the potential for accidental releases, whether or not an accidental release has occurred, where there is evidence which indicates the presence of a potential hazard or hazards.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18, 2010 at 10:46 am and is filed under Chemical industry, Environment, Open government, Worker safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.