Washington implosion, California leak put spotlight on chemical safety failures
Two major chemical accidents just a week apart have killed several people and forced thousands to evacuate. That includes an implosion in Washington state and a potential leak in California.
While not all accidents are as major as those two, chemical accidents are an ongoing problem in the U.S., where manufacturing still accounts for at least 10% of the nation’s gross domestic product.
“They happen often enough that they’re unforgivable,” Rena Steinzor, professor emerita at the University of Maryland Law School and author of “Why Not Jail?”
Washington/California incidents
The incident in Washington killed at least eight people, with another three presumed dead.
That would make it the deadliest industrial accident in state history.
A tank holding hundreds of thousands of gallons of what’s known as “white liquor” imploded. That’s a noxious chemical used in the paper-pulping process.
Seven other employees of Nippon Dynawave Packaging are also hospitalized, and one firefighter was injured.
Meanwhile, officials forced roughly 50,000 Southern California residents to evacuate over a potential leak at the GKN Aerospace facility.
A tank holding 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate appeared to have cracked. The chemical, used in manufacturing resins and plastics, is highly toxic and highly flammable.
“That’s a very dangerous material to breathe in,” Meyer Rosen, president of Interactive Consulting, Inc., told Straight Arrow. “It affects the lungs.”
Those evacuation orders have now been lifted.
Chemical accident causes
The cause of the incidents in Washington and California remains under investigation.
However, chemical accidents have several typical causes.
Firstly, bad management.
“The managers are pushing the workers to work more quickly, and they either don’t have the budget or don’t ask for a budget to make updates to the equipment,” Steinzor said.
Another issue is a lack of oversight by the federal government.
The Trump administration has rolled back regulations and protections for workers. It also lowered the number of workers at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, to its lowest level in nearly five decades.
Companies must comply with certain OSHA regulations, especially when it comes to chemicals, such as coded warning signals on any container.
Repercussions
Repercussions for these kinds of incidents aren’t common.
In 2016, the former CEO of an energy company was sentenced to one year in prison for a 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners.
Don Blankenship of Massey Energy, which was later bought by Alpha Natural Resources, was found to have willfully violated mine health and safety standards.
Once he was released, Blankenship ran for public office.
“He was absolutely not chastened at all,” Steinzor said.
That one-year sentence was the maximum Blankenship could receive.
OSHA and the Mine Health and Safety Act do not typically impose major penalties for these kinds of incidents.
“The worst you can get under the OSHA act is charged with a misdemeanor, even if you kill someone,” Steinzor said.
As for the 11 dead in the Washington incident, any kind of repercussions are unclear at this point.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board announced an investigation, but it remains unclear what will happen next.
In the meantime, chemical accidents, both big and small, are likely to keep happening around the country.
“My personal opinion is to tell people to be alert to what chemicals are being used in their surrounding areas,” Rosen said.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to reflect the number of people who died in the Washington implosion.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
