Date: 2024-12-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00013724
INDUSTRIAL SAFETY
TOXIC CHEMICALS IN THE HOUSTON AREA
Part 1 of series by investigative journalists from the Houston ChronicleIndustrial Safety
TOXIC CHEMICALS IN THE HOUSTON AREA
Part 1 of series by investigative journalists from the Houston ChronicleIndustrial Safety
(Michael Ciaglo / Houston Chronicle)
Original article: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/chemical-breakdown/1/
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
In November 2014, four workers died at a DuPont plant in La Porte after being exposed to a toxic gas. Responding emergency workers weren’t sure what was in the air. The surrounding community wasn’t, either.
This Houston Chronicle investigation explores where another fatal mistake could have the largest consequences and probes the regulatory failures that put us in jeopardy.
PART 1 Dangerous chemicals create hidden dangers
Goodyear, which ranked near the top on the A&M list of plants that pose a high potential for harm, sits across from a park in Pasadena.
All over America and across greater Houston, hundreds of chemicals pose serious threats to public safety at facilities that may be unknown to most neighbors and are largely unpoliced by government.
PART 2 An industry left to police itself
A memorial cross is planted in West near the spot where 15 people died, including a dozen firefighters who raced in unaware of the dangers at the plant.
The U.S. regulatory system is poorly funded and has outdated, complex rules that go unenforced, leaving facilities that handle hazardous chemicals mostly to police themselves.
PART 3 EPA's fix on chemical safety is already broken
The sun sets behind the LyondellBasell Houston Refinery, one of the businesses on the list of high harm facilities, Thursday, April 14, 2016 in Houston.
Local Emergency Planning Committees, groups that the federal government says could prevent the next major incident, all over Texas are disbanded or barely functioning, a Chronicle investigation has found.
PART 4 Federal agencies are at odds over regulation of 'critical issue'
James Giddens said his brother, Rickey, who was killed in a reactive chemical incident at PeroxyChem in Pasadena in January, was obsessive about safety. Federal agencies have ignored even their own recommendations to more closely regulate reactive dangers, saying that the problem is too complex.
PART 5 No answers given years after deadly accident at chemical plant
Mike Smith cuddles with daughter Payton at home in Pearland. He was burned over nearly 80 percent of his body in 2013.
Much like the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board's mission is to find out what caused an accident. Unlike the NTSB, the CSB deploys to only a handful.
PART 6 Houston Fire Dept. doesn't know where dangerous chemicals are
06/24/1995 - About two-thirds of the city's on-duty firefighters were sent to battle a seven-alarm fire which broke out just before 9 a.m. at the Houston Distribution Inc. warehouse at 8500 Market. Thick, black smoke poured thousands of feet into the sky as the warehouse fire gutted the complex and forced voluntary evacuations in the Pleasantville area but spared firefighters and residents serious injury.
The fire department in the nation's fourth-largest city has no idea where most hazardous chemicals are, forgetting lessons learned in a near-disaster 21 years ago, a Chronicle investigation found.
PART 7 Hazardous routes to a disaster
Clouds of ammonia spread over the 610 overpass at the Southwest Freeway about a minute after the 1976 crash.
About 400 trucks a day loaded with hazardous chemicals, inch along 610 in bumper-to-bumper traffic and pass within a mile of NRG Stadium, Memorial Park and the Galleria shopping center.
PART 8 How an industry thwarted Obama, even after tragedy
President Barack Obama attends a memorial for firefighters killed at the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, Thursday, April 25, 2013.(AP Photo/Eric Gay)
After a plant explosion in West, TX, President Obama ordered a sweeping overhaul of chemical safety laws. The American chemical industry had other plans.