A new report on a 2008 explosion at a West Virginia pesticide factory offers a chilling account of a near-catastrophe involving a chemical that killed thousands in Bhopal, India, in 1984 — and raises questions about safeguards at the plant.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board report details how a “runaway chemical reaction” caused a large pressure vessel to explode at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, W. Va., on August 28, 2008. The blast killed two workers, injured eight others, and sent shards of metal into a large tank containing methyl isocyanate (MIC).
The report also documents the company’s delay in providing adequate and timely information to emergency responders and its failure to fix safety problems dating back to 2005. In addition, plant monitors intended to detect MIC releases weren’t working the night of the blast.
The Institute plant is the only plant in the United States that still stores large quantities of MIC, the chemical that leaked from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal in December 1984. When the pressure vessel at Bayer CropScience — known as a residue treater — exploded, pieces of the vessel were sent hurtling into a tank that contained nearly 14,000 pounds of MIC. The tank was protected by a “blast blanket” and, therefore, wasn’t penetrated.
The Chemical Safety Board concluded, however, that if the 5,700-pound residue treater had been propelled into a structure above the tank, a pipe could have ruptured and MIC could have been released into the atmosphere. The blanket would not have prevented such a rupture, the board noted. The mishap highlights “the risks of locating large vessels containing extremely toxic substances within hazardous process areas that have the potential for explosions,” the board said.
