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Apr 23, 7:17 PM EDT
Panel: Safety lapses led to WVa Bayer plant blast
By TOM BREEN
Associated Press Writer
INSTITUTE, W.Va. (AP) -- Safety lapses that led to a runaway chemical reaction caused a fatal blast at a Bayer CropScience chemical plant last August, federal investigators said Thursday.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board's preliminary report came two days after a congressional inquiry into the Aug. 28 blast that killed two people at the sprawling plant west of Charleston.
A congressional committee report for that inquiry said the explosion came close to compromising a tank holding methyl isocyanate, or MIC, the chemical that killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India, when it leaked from a former Union Carbide plant in 1984. Carbide once operated the West Virginia plant, which is now owned by Bayer CropScience.
The tank holds about 13,000 pounds of MIC, according to Chemical Safety Board Chairman John Bresland. The board does not know exactly how much MIC is stored elsewhere at the plant. No other facility in the U.S. stores MIC in such amounts, he said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PLANT_EXPLOSION_REPORT?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Panel: Safety lapses led to WVa Bayer plant blast
By TOM BREEN
Associated Press Writer
INSTITUTE, W.Va. (AP) -- Safety lapses that led to a runaway chemical reaction caused a fatal blast at a Bayer CropScience chemical plant last August, federal investigators said Thursday.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board's preliminary report came two days after a congressional inquiry into the Aug. 28 blast that killed two people at the sprawling plant west of Charleston.
A congressional committee report for that inquiry said the explosion came close to compromising a tank holding methyl isocyanate, or MIC, the chemical that killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India, when it leaked from a former Union Carbide plant in 1984. Carbide once operated the West Virginia plant, which is now owned by Bayer CropScience.
The tank holds about 13,000 pounds of MIC, according to Chemical Safety Board Chairman John Bresland. The board does not know exactly how much MIC is stored elsewhere at the plant. No other facility in the U.S. stores MIC in such amounts, he said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PLANT_EXPLOSION_REPORT?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US