The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is supposed to oversee facilities containing large amounts of ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer that exploded in West, Texas on Wednesday. The same hazardous substance was also responsible for the deadly blasts that leveled Texas City in 1947 and the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Our Pearland, Texas industrial accident attorneys note that the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act is the regulatory act that gives the DHS the ability to oversee the fertilizer plant in West, Texas and other facilities that store and use large amounts of the potentially explosive material.
DHS Apparently Remained Unaware of the Existence of the West, Texas Fertilizer Plant and its Ammonium Nitrate until the Deadly Explosion
Reportedly the DHS was not even aware that the West, Texas fertilizer plant existed until after it exploded, leveling several city blocks. The facility had reported to another agency last year that it had 270 tons of ammonium nitrate on hand. (According to a Reuters report, this is 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that should trigger DHS oversight.)
But our Pearland, Texas industrial accident attorneys point out that the information had not been passed along by that agency to the DHS and the fertilizer plant had also not informed the DHS itself. The DHS, once informed, would review a facility and its operations and create a safety plan.
A Byzantine Scheme of Overlapping Regulatory Authority Covered the Fertilizer Plant, Yet Still left Huge Safety Gaps, as the Explosion Revealed
The reporting oversight on the part of fertilizer plant owners and managers might not have been willful. The West, Texas fertilizer plant is subject to scrutiny and regulation by at least 7 state and federal agencies, so it might be difficult to keep track of which agencies are supposed to be told what.
This situation of confusing regulatory overlap with a lack of ultimate accountability reveals a dangerous and glaring hole in the regulatory oversight scheme. If the fertilizer plant in West, Texas was not known to DHS, there may be other such facilities that are not known. If the facility itself is responsible for alerting DHS to its presence, and other agencies with information about it do not forward that important information to DHS, our Pearland, Texas industrial accident attorneys emphasize that everyone’s safety remains at risk.
The government agencies that we must rely upon for our safety need to be reliable. They should share important information amongst themselves regarding such things as the locations at which enormous quantities of explosive materials are stored.
Some Information about Ammonium Nitrate and Anhydrous Ammonia
The Pearland, Texas industrial accident attorneys at Denena Points, PC mention that ammonium nitrate is fairly safe under most conditions. But high temperatures and high pressure can lead to explosions. And anhydrous ammonia, a gas that is often found in tandem with ammonium nitrate, can also explode at high temperature and even upon contact with water apparently. Some reports indicated that this is what might have happened in West, Texas since the fertilizer plant explosion was preceded by a fire that firefighters were attempting to quell.
The West, Texas fertilizer plant also had recent safety violations on record. For example, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration had fined the plant over $5,000 for transporting chemicals without a proper safety plan and for lacking safety labels on some tanks. Apparently the plant had also filed a safety plan late with another agency a few years ago. (Sources: Joshua Schneyer, Ryan McNeill, and Janet Roberts, Reuters: and KPRC click2houston.com, 4/19/13
Let’s Get Serious about Safety
Relying on the companies and individuals who store, transport, and utilize hazardous substances like ammonium nitrate to report the hazards themselves clearly presents a huge safety risk to all of us. Here in Texas, particularly along the Gulf Coast and in agricultural communities, we have enormous concentrations of potentially hazardous substances stored in tanks, processing plants, and other facilities. As the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion reveals, a combination of the right conditions could turn the materials into a deadly hazard that claims innocent lives and injures scores of others.
Our Pearland, Texas industrial accident attorneys call upon the government agencies to work together, share information, and increase our actual level of safety. The West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion provides a huge wake-up call to take real safety concerns more seriously.
Click the link to read more about the deadly fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas.
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