Items Tagged with 'West Fertilizer'

A working group of federal agencies has issued a fact sheet* on progress made to improve the safety and security of chemical facilities in the United States.

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 West Fertilizer plant explosion in Texas garnered a great deal of attention from ISHN.com visitors. Also on their reading list: temp worker safety, confined space tragedies and arc flash hazards. Here are the most-read Facility Safety stories of the year:

In the speech he gave at yesterday’s memorial in Waco Texas for the victims of last week’s deadly fertilizer plant explosion, President Barack Obama made no mention of the role that regulatory oversight – or lack thereof – may have played in the tragedy.

While investigators in West, Texas, sift through the rubble of a fertilizer plant that exploded last week, killing 15 people, safety advocates are calling for stricter government oversight of potentially hazardous sites like that one. The operator of the plant, West Fertilizer Co., did file an emergency response plan update in 2011 with the EPA listing anhydrous ammonia on site, but did not indicate there was a risk of fire or explosion at the plant.

The spectacle of frightened elderly nursing home patients being rescued from debris following last week’s explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant had a jarring affect on many Americans. So did photos of debris where approximately 80 homes once stood, and pictures of an apartment complex that had its windows blasted out by the explosion.

The West Fertilizer plant that was the site of last week’s devastating explosion and loss of life had at least 50,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia onsite -- yet the site’s operators told the EPA and public safety officials that it posed no risk of fire or explosion, according to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).