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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Friday, June 30, 2017 at 7:29:59 AM
A membership benefit of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas
Table of Contents (13 articles)
'POTENTIALLY EXPLOSIVE' SUBSTANCE LEADS TO EVACUATION OF LA CROS
Tags: us_WI, public, discovery, response, waste
BATTERY LEAK AT UNI RELEASES TOXIC FUMES
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, release, injury, batteries, sulfuric_acid
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION: DHS HAS FULLY IMPLEMENTED ITS CHEMICAL SECURITY EXPEDITED APPROVAL PROGRAM, AND PARTICIPATION TO DATE HAS BEEN LIMITED
Tags: industrial, follow-up, environmental
NEWTON ANIMAL HOSPITAL EVACUATED AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_MA, public, release, injury, other_chemical
MORE EVIDENCE SHOWS NEONICOTINOIDS HARM BEES
Tags: Canada, public, discovery, environmental, pesticides
CALIFORNIA TO LIST GLYPHOSATE AS A CARCINOGEN
Tags: us_CA, public, discovery, environmental, pesticides
OVER 4,000 HOSPITALS HAVE NO FIRE SAFETY MEASURES IN PLACE
Tags: India, laboratory, follow-up, environmental, flammables
SAFETY NORMS IGNORED, BLOW TORCH LEFT BEHIND: THE MYSTERY OF NCL MAGIC LAB FIRE DEEPENS
Tags: India, laboratory, follow-up, response, flammables
HAZMAT TEAM CALLED OUT TO CHEMICAL PRODUCTS COMPANY IN SHAFTER
Tags: us_CA, industrial, release, response, chlorine
EXPLOSIVES MAKER CITED, AGAIN, IN CALIFORNIA INJURY CASE
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, injury, fireworks
CYANIDE GAS CAUSE OF APARTMENT EVACUATION IN BOZEMAN
Tags: us_mt, public, release, response, cyanide
‰??ADVERSE CHEMICAL REACTION‰?? AT VANDALIA BUSINESS SENDS 15 TO HOSPITALS
Tags: us_oh, industrial, release, response, unknown_chemical
CHEMICAL-SOAKED RAGS STARTED BELGRADE HOUSE FIRE
Tags: us_mt, fire, public, response, oil
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'POTENTIALLY EXPLOSIVE' SUBSTANCE LEADS TO EVACUATION OF LA CROS
Tags: us_WI, public, discovery, response, waste
La Crosse, WI (WXOW) - -
A person who brought what was termed a 'potentially explosive' substance to the La Crosse County Household Hazardous Materials facility ended up closing the complex Thursday and forced the evacuation of workers there.
La Crosse County Special Waste Manager Randy Nedrelo said county staff began emergency plans as soon as the recognized the substance.
La Crosse's Fire Department and Hazardous Materials Team came to the facility on Highway 16 to take care of the container holding the substance.
Nedrelo said that the department, along with members of the Dane County Sheriff's Department, took the container to a secure location and properly disposed of it.
As this was happening, staff at the facility and at the landfill were evacuated. The landfill was shut down to everyone.
The landfill will reopen to the public and regular operations on Friday.
---------------------------------------------
BATTERY LEAK AT UNI RELEASES TOXIC FUMES
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, release, injury, batteries, sulfuric_acid
Four people were exposed to sulphuric acid after batteries leaked in the basement of an Oxford University building.
Fire crews attended the ‰??unusual incident‰?? at the university‰??s engineering department on Parks Road just before 12.30pm on Friday and remained for nearly five hours.
More than 40 batteries had started to heat up, swell and leak, causing four people to inhale sulphuric acid fumes. They were unharmed but were treated by trauma trained firefighters and paramedics.
Three people were discharged at the scene and one man was taken to hospital for further precautionary checks.
After consultation with the management on site, specialist hazardous materials officers and the battery manufacturer, a plan to deal with the incident was agreed.
Firefighters went into the building wearing breathing apparatus with a gas monitor and thermal image camera to assess the situation.
The power supply was disconnected from the batteries but the batteries are designed to hold their electric charge so no water could be applied to cool the units.
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CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION: DHS HAS FULLY IMPLEMENTED ITS CHEMICAL SECURITY EXPEDITED APPROVAL PROGRAM, AND PARTICIPATION TO DATE HAS BEEN LIMITED
Tags: industrial, follow-up, environmental
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fully implemented the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) Expedited Approval Program in June 2015 and reported to Congress on the program in August 2016, as required by the Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act of 2014 (CFATS Act of 2014). DHS's expedited program guidance identifies specific security measures that eligible (i.e., tiers 3 and 4) high-risk facilities can use to develop expedited security plans, rather than developing standard (non-expedited) security plans. Standard plans provide more flexibility in securing a facility, but are also more time-consuming to process. DHS's report to Congress on the expedited program discussed all required elements. For example, DHS was required to assess the impact of the expedited program on facility security. DHS reported that it DDHSit was difficult to assess the impact of the program on security because only one facility had used it at t!
he time of the report. DHS officials stated that they would further evaluate the impact of the program on security if enough additional facilities use it in the future.
As of April 2017, only 2 of the 2,496 eligible facilities opted to use the Expedited Approval Program; various factors affected participation. Officials from the two facilities told GAO they used the program because its prescriptive nature helped them quickly determine what they needed to do to implement required security measures and reduced the time and cost to prepare and submit their security plans to DHS. According to DHS and industry officials GAO interviewed, low participation to date could be due to several factors:
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NEWTON ANIMAL HOSPITAL EVACUATED AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_MA, public, release, injury, other_chemical
A Newton animal hospital was evacuated after a chemical spill on Thursday night, the Fire Department said.
The spill at VCA Rotherwood Animal Hospital on Winchester Street occurred shortly after 7 p.m., according to Fire Lieutenant Eric Fricke, a department spokesman.
He said three employees were in the building when some chemicals fell off a shelf, including an anesthetic for pets that can cause eye and throat irritation and breathing difficulty.
All three workers made it outside safely and were evaluated at the scene, according to Fricke.
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MORE EVIDENCE SHOWS NEONICOTINOIDS HARM BEES
Tags: Canada, public, discovery, environmental, pesticides
Researchers in Europe and Canada have new evidence that neonicotinoid pesticides reduce the survival and reproductive success of bees. The effects, however, vary with location and bee species, two teams report June 30 in Science.
The studies suggest that regulators need to weigh the benefits of neonicotinoids to production with the risks of harm to pollinators.
In one of the studies, a group led by researchers from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, in England, exposed three bee species to winter oilseed rape crops that had been treated with either clothianidin or thiamethoxam (2017, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa1190). The experiment was conducted in the U.K., Germany, and Hungary.
The researchers found that honeybees exposed to the treated crops had lower overwintering success in Hungary and the U.K. They did not observe such effects in overwintering honeybees in Germany. In all three areas, bumblebees and red mason bees exposed to the treated crops had lower reproductive success.
---------------------------------------------
CALIFORNIA TO LIST GLYPHOSATE AS A CARCINOGEN
Tags: us_CA, public, discovery, environmental, pesticides
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto‰??s Roundup weed killer, will be listed as a carcinogen in California as of July 7, the state announced on June 26.
The move will trigger a requirement that glyphosate products sold in California carry a cancer warning under a state law called Proposition 65.
Monsanto is fighting the state‰??s action in court. But a state appeals court and the California Supreme Court on June 22 denied the company‰??s request to stop the listing from taking effect while the case plays out.
‰??We will continue to aggressively challenge this improper decision,‰?? says Scott Partridge, Monsanto‰??s vice president of global strategy. ‰??Glyphosate is not carcinogenic, and the listing of glyphosate under Prop 65 is unwarranted.‰??
California announced in 2015 that it would list glyphosate as a carcinogen. This followed a controversial move by the World Health Organization‰??s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifying glyphosate as a ‰??probable carcinogen.‰?? California law requires the state‰??s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to list substances identified by IARC as known to cause cancer under the state‰??s Proposition 65.
---------------------------------------------
OVER 4,000 HOSPITALS HAVE NO FIRE SAFETY MEASURES IN PLACE
Tags: India, laboratory, follow-up, environmental, flammables
Fire and Safety Association of India (FSAI), which conducted a survey, has found out that over 4,000 hospitals in the state are not following the standard fire safety rule. After a laboratory fire accident case in the city last December, fire authorities have been on a drive to prevent fire accidents in hospitals.
"Hospitals are like a bomb. There are cylinders, chemicals and almost every material is inflammable. What we found is that close to 4,000 hospitals, which has over 25 beds, in the state don't have a single precautionary measure in place. We conducted an awareness programme where we tried to give them insights on alternative methods and how they can do simple things to prevent fire. Some evacuation techniques too have been demonstrated," Dominic K P, chairman (events), FSAI, told BM. "We have trained around 350 hospitals from the city on safety measures during a fire emergency. When hospitals briefed us about already existing infrastructure and they cannot do anything further, we have given them ideas such as: inter-connect staircases to a neighbouring building. We call this horizontal evacuation. We have also told hospitals to set up effective firefighting systems," added Dominic.
It was also found that some hospitals in the city are not even using extinguishers properly. P Lakshminarayana, Bengaluru chapter of FSAI, said, "To our shock, we found some hospitals hiding the extinguishers. Reason? Since it was red in colour, it did not suit their interior design. We really don't understand what is more important? Lives or design? Also, the emergency doors are always kept locked or there were hospitals which had kept their old documents and papers at the door making them inaccessible."
NR Markandeya, deputy director (fire prevention), Fire and Emergency Services Directorate of Karnataka told Mirror: "After training all schools, hospitals are the next sector we are focusing on. We have issued notices to all hospitals and given them 90 days to implement all necessary parameters. If they don't comply, we will cut power and water supply to the hospital and seal the hospital. The last resort is of course filing an FIR."
---------------------------------------------
SAFETY NORMS IGNORED, BLOW TORCH LEFT BEHIND: THE MYSTERY OF NCL MAGIC LAB FIRE DEEPENS
Tags: India, laboratory, follow-up, response, flammables
A major fire on the night of March 27, which gutted the 13-month-old Indus MAGIC Lab inside the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), has left behind a trail of unanswered questions. After hosting an event during the weekend, CSIR-NCL was officially closed on March 27, hours before the fire. At the time of the incident, nobody was working in any of the labs, due to which there was no casualties or loss of life.
According to sources, the NCL internal committee comprising senior scientists, safety officers and experts from other labs in Pune ‰?? which was appointed to look into the matter soon after the incident ‰?? could not come up with any conclusions about the cause of the fire. But the high-level CSIR committee, which looked into the fire incident, examined CCTV footage and found that two persons had left the laboratory premises a few minutes before the fire started at 8 pm.
On April 13, the committee had visited NCL, inspected the site, and questioned lab operators and other officials. However, over three months after the event, it is yet to submit a final report.
According to highly-placed sources, some disturbing findings had emerged during the investigation by the CSIR committee. This includes ‰??compromise on the quality of material used during renovation, inappropriate use of highly inflammable material and a complete absence of even basic safety devices, which are mandatory in such laboratories‰??.
A pertinent question is whether the existing internal safety committee, involved in the day-to-day monitoring of the laboratory, was doing its job of ensuring the safety of the MAGIC lab. ‰??No safety audit of the laboratories has been carried out for several years‰?| NCL witnesses an incident of fire, or sometimes even two incidents, every week,‰?? said a highly-placed source.
---------------------------------------------
HAZMAT TEAM CALLED OUT TO CHEMICAL PRODUCTS COMPANY IN SHAFTER
Tags: us_CA, industrial, release, response, chlorine
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) ‰?? A HAZMAT team was called to chlorine spill at a chemical products company in Shafter on Wednesday.
Kern County Firefighters got a call for a leaking chlorine container around 10 in the morning.
Crews arrived on scene and found a 150 lbs chlorine container leaking.
Firefighters were able to evacuate all employee's and personnel without any injuries, according to the KCFD.
The HAZMAT team monitored the area downwind of the spill and did not find any evidence of the leak spreading to the area.
---------------------------------------------
EXPLOSIVES MAKER CITED, AGAIN, IN CALIFORNIA INJURY CASE
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, injury, fireworks
As the country gears up for the patriotic pyrotechnics of July 4th, California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) says a Hollister industrial explosives manufacturer failed to take steps that would have prevented a serious employee injury. The company makes energetic materials, ordnance, electronics, laser, and pyrotechnic materials for defense, aerospace, and other industries.
In December 2016, a technician was preparing explosives in metal tubing. She had mounted 79 of the tubes, known as Small Column Insulated Delays (SCIDs), onto support brackets attached to an aluminum tray. While attempting to apply tape to secure the SCIDs to the tray, 75 of the 79 exploded, sending shrapnel flying in all directions and seriously injuring the technician.
Cal/OSHA issued nearly $300,000 in fines after determining that the employer failed to protect the employee‰??s workstation from the potential for explosion, even though the company‰??s own manufacturing procedures require use of a safety shield during such tasks. As well, the business allegedly failed to provide clear, written instruction about how to safely mount the SCIDs. Nine citations were issued, three in the willful-serious category.
According to Cal/OSHA this is not the first time this employer has been cited for neglecting a worker‰??s safety. In a 2007 explosion incident, an employee suffered serious burns and had to be airlifted to intensive care. Another injury occurred in 2015. Both incidents resulted in citations.
---------------------------------------------
CYANIDE GAS CAUSE OF APARTMENT EVACUATION IN BOZEMAN
Tags: us_mt, public, release, response, cyanide
BOZEMAN -
A Bozeman apartment building was evacuated Monday night after a suicidal man manufactured a poisonous gas in his apartment in an effort to kill himself, according to the Bozeman Police Department on Tuesday.
The Bozeman Police Department confirm the chemical that was reported at the Sundance Apartments was potassium cyanide gas.
Potassium cyanide releases hydrogen cyanide gas, a toxic chemical asphyxiant that interferes with the body's ability to use oxygen, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Exposure to potassium cyanide can be rapidly fatal.
Police, Gallatin County Sheriff‰??s deputies, and the Bozeman Fire Department were called to the apartment complex at around 10 p.m.
A resident of the apartment said he heard yelling from the apartment.
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‰??ADVERSE CHEMICAL REACTION‰?? AT VANDALIA BUSINESS SENDS 15 TO HOSPITALS
Tags: us_oh, industrial, release, response, unknown_chemical
UPDATE **At_Symbol_Here** 1:25 a.m.: An ‰??adverse chemical reaction‰?? sent 15 workers from All-Service Plastic Molding to area hospitals, none suffering from life-threatening injuries, Vandalia Fire Chief Chad Follick said.
‰??When crews arrived, we found the building being evacuated,‰?? Follick said. ‰??We also found victims complaining of respiratory-type irritation -- eyes, some headaches.‰??
According to the preliminary investigation, he said, some materials they were working with ‰??off-gassed‰?? during a process in the plant and caused some noxious fumes resulting in the 15 people having to be taken to hospitals.
‰??It‰??s not anything they could have prevented,‰?? the chief said. ‰??It just happened.‰??
Fire crews ventilated the building and turned it over to company managers. Follick said he believes the second shift will run as it normally would.
Company managers did their job and made the job of the fire/rescue crews easier, he said.
The Dayton Regional Hazardous Materials Response Team was called and consulted, but did not respond because the HAZMAT official felt the fire crews had the situation well in hand, Follick said.
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CHEMICAL-SOAKED RAGS STARTED BELGRADE HOUSE FIRE
Tags: us_mt, fire, public, response, oil
The fire that destroyed a house in the Landmark Subdivision in Belgrade over the weekend started after rags soaked in wood stain spontaneously combusted.
According to the incident report prepared by the Central Valley Fire District, Saturday‰??s fire began after a pile of rags located outside the home‰??s attached garage heated to the point that they ignited. The fire, intensified by nearby containers of gas and paint thinner, then spread to the main area of the house, as well as the roof and attic.
The homeowners, a husband and wife, made it out of the home with their dog. The husband was taken to Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital for non-critical burns and later discharged.
The Bozeman, Amsterdam and Hyalite fire departments also responded to the home with the Gallatin County Sheriff‰??s Office and American Medical Response.
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