Articles Tagged with ''refinery safety''

As reported previously, we found a causal factor of the tragedy to be long-term, undetected High Temperature Hydrogen Attack (HTHA) of the steel equipment, which led to the vessel rupture on the day of the accident and the massive release of highly flammable hydrogen and naphtha.

A massive explosion and fire at the Silver Eagle Refinery on November 4, 2009, in Woods Cross, Utah, which damaged homes in a nearby neighborhood, was caused by a rupture in a pipe that had become dangerously thin from corrosion, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB). 

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has requested $12.25 million for fiscal year 2015 – an increase over the $11.484 million it requested in 2014. Chairperson Rafael Moure-Eraso said thefunds will enable the agency to continue to investigate high consequence chemical accidents, perform chemical safety studies, and advocate for effective safety recommendations.

The Chevron refinery fire in California in 2012 – the West Texas explosion last year – the West Virginia water crisis in January: All of these were preventable accidents. The United States is facing an industrial chemical safety crisis. After all of these accidents, we hear frustration and heartbreak.  Workers, emergency responders, and the public continue to die and suffer injuries.

California’s initiative to improve refinery safety is getting a big thumb’s up from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB). A report recently released by the California Interagency Working Group on Refinery Safety “is an important milestone for improving refinery safety across the State of California,” said CSB Chairperson Rafael Moure-Eraso.

Another delay for OSHA’s silica rule, a pipeline explosion in Canada and workplace violence prevention training for nurses were among this week’s top EHS-related stories featured on ISHN.com.

The CSB has released a new computer animation recreating the explosion and fire that killed seven workers at the Tesoro Refinery in Anacortes, Washington on April 2, 2010. The incident occurred when a nearly forty-year-old heat exchanger catastrophically failed during a maintenance operation to switch a process stream between two parallel banks of exchangers at the refinery.

The April 2, 2010, explosion and fire that fatally injured seven employees at the Tesoro Refinery in Anacortes, Washington was caused by a faulty heat exchanger, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which will officially wrap up its investigation into the tragedy at a meeting later this month.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) will vote on the draft regulatory report of the August 6, 2012, fire at the Chevron refinery that endangered 19 workers and sent more than 15,000 residents to the hospital for medical attention at its public meeting on January 15.

Good news about the aging workforce, the Obama administration accused of delaying rulemaking for political purposes and we don’t approve of speeding – even though we do it. These were among the top EHS-related stories featured on ISHN.com this week.