Gazette photo by Chris Dorst
When it announced plans to investigate recent DuPont Co. Belle plant problems — including a Saturday afternoon phosgene leak that killed a worker – the U.S. Chemical Safety Board noted its concern about six previous leaks at the facility since December 2006.
I thought readers might want some more information about those six incidents, so here goes:
– December 2006 – On Saturday, Dec. 9, 2006, DuPont reported a leak and then a fire in the Belle plant’s amines unit. DuPont reported to WVDEP a pressure spike that caused three flanges to fail and cause a pipe to leak. Then, another small hole in a one-inch pipe triggered a fire. Initially, DuPont told the National Response Center that about 150 pounds of the chemical trimethylamine leaked. DuPont uses this chemical in the production of animal feed supplements. It has a strong fishy smell, which spread around the Kanawha Valley, causing residents to need to clean their cars and clothes. Within a week, DuPont reported the leak was four times larger than the company originally reported.
– September 2008 – On Sept. 28 2008, DuPont reported that a “trace amount” of sulfur trioxide was released into the air. The release resulted in a small white cloud inside the plant.
– October 2008 — On Oct. 24, 2008, DuPont reported that “an ounce or two of concentrated sulfuric acid” was released from the plant.
– December 2008 — On Dec. 22, 2008, DuPont reported a leak of 4,800 gallons of phosphoric acid from the bottom of a storage tank. Some of the chemical spilled over a dike around the tank and went into the ground and storm drains that lead to the Kanawah River.
– July 2009 — DuPont officials waited more than two days to report a leak of sulfur trioxide. The leak occurred in a sulfuric acid production unit that was the subject of a major federal enforcement action earlier in 2009. Initially, DuPont estimated the leak at 300 to 400 pounds. Later, they downgraded the estimate to about 18 pounds, an amount that would not kick in the requirement to notify federal, state and local authorities. The leak came from a two- to three-inch hole in a duct on the unit.
– August 2009 — Less than one pound of monomethylamine was released from a transfer pump at the plant.
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The integrity of the Management of this Company is highly questionable, considering in recent years DuPont has been caught engaging in criminal price-fixing at its rubber products venture and pleaded guilty, illegally misrepresenting its medical products (FDA letter to DuPont Chairman Chad Holliday, May 7, 2007), covering up its toxic Teflon chemical pollution for over two decades, and materially under-reporting worker injuries and illnesses to OSHA, undsoweiter.
We’re more than mildly curious:
How many leaks at DuPont sites, Belle and others, go under-reported, or unreported, or purposefully delayed in reporting??
…funfundvierzig..
[...] here to see the original: Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » Chemical Safety Board details … tags: action-earlier, ambient-standards, antimony, eight-percentile, estimated-the-leak, [...]
[...] the rest here: Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » Chemical Safety Board details … tags: 4800-gallons, acid, chemical, phosphoric acid, spilled-over, storm-drains, the-large [...]
Re: funfun
It would seem funfun has some sort of axe to grind with DuPont. I have noticed after every article he/she comments about the company’s integrity. Just an observation.
Folks, it looks like shills for BIG CHEMICALS and DuPont Management have adopted the sleazy strategy once considered by Bayer management after the tragic explosion in August 2008. Namely, the strategy for PR damage control is marginalisation of independently-speaking citizens and news journalists by cheap personal attacks and distracting harassment.
The off-topic ad hominem bullying as you can see above suggests a desperation by the proponents and supporters of DuPont Management to quash open discussion and questioning as fast as possible.
The undersigned simply holds fast to the old-fashioned notion that big chemical executives should be held responsible for their performance and the hazardous risks they create for their workers and the community. That notion apparently is intolerable to the operatives guarding DuPont Management. …funfundvierzig..
Any reader who wants to make his or her own assessment of the “integrity” of the DuPont Company and of its Management when it comes to safety might try GOOGLING “Jack Seddon DuPont”. This case involved a regular DuPont worker who interestingly enough worked around a phosgene reactor at DuPont’s Chambers Works in south Jersey, which he found to be seriously corroded. Fearing for his own safety and that of his co-workers and the community, he brought this critical matter to the attention of his DuPont Managers and proper outside regulators.
The response from DuPont Management? Retaliation! Mr. Seddon was branded mentally-unbalanced and harassed. He brought suit in a New Jersey civil court under the Whistleblower protection laws of the state, and won a sizeable judgement for damages, including tellingly punitive damages against DuPont for retaliation of what was described as an “evil” DuPont Management!
And yes, the undersigned as an individual citizen at large will continue to question the integrity of DuPont Management, particularly when lives are at stake.
…funfundvierzig..
Funfun it is a wekll jnown fact on other boards that since you were let go 8 years ago you have done nothing but make up and post trash about Dupont and work for some other group or business to do just that. You are the one with no integrity.
Just an individual citizen at large that will continue to question the integrity of funfun.
Folks, these hecklers ape the culture of retaliation and petty vindictiveness of the DuPont Management they’re determined to guard and protect!
For the record, the undersigned has never been fired, furloughed, laid-off, terminated, asked to leave voluntarily or involuntarily from DuPont or any of its subsidiaries, ventures, or affiliates. As a regular DuPonter for part of my professional career, I did moil and toil in the tightly controlled, ethically crippled DuPont bureaucracy for a number of years at the Company’s comically called World Headquarters of Sustainable Excellence in Wilmington, Delaware. So my opinions do carry the authenticity of first-hand experience with DuPont Management and the corporate culture.
The undersigned speaks, as has been disclosed repeatedly, as an individual citizen at large, unaffiliated, no connections with any other corporation, DuPont competitor or not, or any non-profit organisation, law firm, union, activist group, undsoweiter.
The monitoring and repeat heckling and harassment of independently-speaking posters in this forum and other internet sites by DuPont Management proponents goes to show this Company has tonnes to hide and demands silence, no scrutiny. That’s surely not reassuring to people. It’s downright intimidating to those who want to speak out, and believe they have such a right in 21st century America.
…funfundvierzig..
funfun, thanks for thinking I’m Dupont management. I’ll take that as a complement. Now give me the raise in salary for my promotion!!! I too have never been employed by DuPont, etc., etc. or it’s subsideraries etc, etc. I’m merely observing how you continue to harp upon them and talk the same trash over and over and over……..
[...] Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » Chemical Safety Board details previous DuPont leaks blogs.wvgazette.com – view page – cached When it announced plans to investigate recent DuPont Co. Belle plant problems — including a Saturday afternoon phosgene leak that killed a worker – the U.S. Chemical Safety Board noted its concern about six previous leaks at the facility since December 2006. [...]
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