WASHINGTON -- The federal investigation into the deadly chemical accident at the Williams Olefins plant in Geismar is stalled temporarily because the facility remains too dangerous for investigators to enter, a Senate committee was told Thursday. The probe of the June 13 accident, which killed two workers and injured 114 others, centers on the failure of a heat exchanger...
WASHINGTON -- The federal investigation into the deadly chemical accident at the Williams Olefins plant in Geismar is stalled temporarily because the facility remains too dangerous for investigators to enter, a Senate committee was told Thursday.
The probe of the June 13 accident, which killed two workers and injured 114 others, centers on the failure of a heat exchanger and associated piping attached to the distillation tower, according to Rafael Moure-Eraso, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
The update on the investigation came at a contentious Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee hearing Thursday.
Committee Chair Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., blasted Deputy EPA Administrator Barry Breen for what she described as a lack of urgency in the agency's response to long past due recommendations for safety improvements from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and others. She described Breen's written testimony as "the most vague testimony I've ever heard."
The panel's top Republican, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., also criticized Breen for declining to testify in public about the senator's concerns about federal subpoenas for material collected by the Chemical Safety Board in its investigations, including the Geismar accident.
Vitter said he's all for a tough criminal probe, if that's called for, but that officials might not be candid in what they share with the safety board if they think it is going to be provided, under subpoena, to criminal investigators.
Similar concerns were expressed about the multiple-agency investigations of the 2010 BP oil spill disaster.
Moure-Eraso, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, said investigators have spoken to 28 witnesses at the Williams plant and expects debris removal to be far enough along later this week for his investigators to finally enter the facility.
"This will allow investigators to observe the positions of key valves and obtain other important information," he said. "In addition, we plan to recover (material) and perform metallurgical tests on the heat exchanger and other piping. This testing will help determine whether the equipment that failed had weakened or deteriorated prior to the rupture or some other factors were at play."
Boxer centered most of her questioning on the April explosion at a fertilizer manufacturing plant in West, Texas, which killed 15 people, injured more than 160, and destroyed or damaged more than 220 homes and a 50-unit apartment building.
She centered her criticism on the failure of EPA to adopt a 2002 Chemical Security Board recommendation to cover reactive chemicals, such as those stored at the Texas facility, under a regulatory regime that includes a risk assessment plan. The board also pressed for rules requiring the safe storage of ammonium nitrate in metal containers, away from any combustible materials and preferably not near schools and homes.
That wasn't done at the Texas facility, according to the Chemical Board.
"Lives are being lost and recommendations were made a long time ago, and nothing's happened," Boxer said.
Breen seemed taken aback at the criticism. "I need to find a way to convey to you our sense of urgency," he said.
Vitter, in his questioning, expressed concern that some, including Boxer, are concluding, in his view prematurely, that regulators should require chemical companies to use safer processes when available.
He asked M. Sam Mannan, director of the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A &M University, whether he would draw such conclusions from the Louisiana and Texas accidents.
Mannan joked that he had replaced the lambasted EPA official on the witness "hotlist."
He said his only answer for now is that it is too early to reach such a conclusion, given that the investigations into the two accidents are still ongoing. It's also a complex undertaking, Mannan said, to determine whether a substitute chemical process would be as effective and substantially safer than the process being replaced,.
Moure-Eraso of the Chemical Board said he continues to worry about the safe storage of ammonium nitrate fertilizer after witnessing the devastation at the West, Texas, plant.
"The safety of ammonium nitrate fertilizer storage falls under a patchwork of U.S. regulatory standards and guidance, a patch work that has many large holes," he said.
Adding to the problem, he said, is that his board is running out of money, as a result of budget sequestration, and might not have enough to fully investigate and staff another major accident in the next few months.