Federal investigators are beginning what could turn into a detailed examination of what caused the explosion and fire that killed one worker Thursday night at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute.
Interactive map: See approximate location of the blast
INSTITUTE, W.Va. -- Federal investigators are beginning what could turn into a detailed examination of what caused the explosion and fire that killed one worker Thursday night at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute.
A five-person team from the federal Chemical Safety Board was expected in Charleston by early this evening to begin an independent probe of the accident.
Board chairman John Bresland made it to Charleston this afternoon, met with local emergency response officials and was setting up his agency's operations.
"The issues are broader than just -- something blew up," said Bresland, who by coincidence was at The Greenbrier Friday for a presentation with state business leaders about the chemical board. "We look at safety culture and underlying issues."
Earlier today, Bayer officials said the explosion appears to have occurred in a chemical tank that was added during a recent routine maintenance shutdown of a pesticide unit.
The 4,000-gallon cylindrical tank was used to clean up wastes created during the production of the pesticide Larvin, said Bayer site manager Nick Crosby.
"It appears to have occurred right at the back end of the process where we treat process residues," Crosby said. "[But] I can't tell you today what caused the incident. We don't know yet."
As the company began its own probe, inspectors from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration were on site for their own investigation. OSHA will examine the plant's compliance with various workplace safety rules, including federal requirements for how hazardous chemicals are managed, officials said.
The chemical board is a different, independent agency charged by Congress with investigating chemical accidents. CSB investigations look into all aspects of chemical accidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure as well as inadequacies in regulations, industry standards, and safety management systems. Congress created the board in 1990, and modeled it after the National Transportation Safety Board.
"It's under investigation, and it could be a couple of days or a couple of weeks before they know exactly what happened," said Dale Petry, Kanawha County's director of emergency services.
Interactive map: See approximate location of the blast
INSTITUTE, W.Va. -- Federal investigators are beginning what could turn into a detailed examination of what caused the explosion and fire that killed one worker Thursday night at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute.
A five-person team from the federal Chemical Safety Board was expected in Charleston by early this evening to begin an independent probe of the accident.
Board chairman John Bresland made it to Charleston this afternoon, met with local emergency response officials and was setting up his agency's operations.
"The issues are broader than just -- something blew up," said Bresland, who by coincidence was at The Greenbrier Friday for a presentation with state business leaders about the chemical board. "We look at safety culture and underlying issues."
Earlier today, Bayer officials said the explosion appears to have occurred in a chemical tank that was added during a recent routine maintenance shutdown of a pesticide unit.
The 4,000-gallon cylindrical tank was used to clean up wastes created during the production of the pesticide Larvin, said Bayer site manager Nick Crosby.
"It appears to have occurred right at the back end of the process where we treat process residues," Crosby said. "[But] I can't tell you today what caused the incident. We don't know yet."
As the company began its own probe, inspectors from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration were on site for their own investigation. OSHA will examine the plant's compliance with various workplace safety rules, including federal requirements for how hazardous chemicals are managed, officials said.
The chemical board is a different, independent agency charged by Congress with investigating chemical accidents. CSB investigations look into all aspects of chemical accidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure as well as inadequacies in regulations, industry standards, and safety management systems. Congress created the board in 1990, and modeled it after the National Transportation Safety Board.
"It's under investigation, and it could be a couple of days or a couple of weeks before they know exactly what happened," said Dale Petry, Kanawha County's director of emergency services.
Petry confirmed that plant employee Barry Withrow was killed. A second worker was transported to a Pittsburgh hospital for treatment of third-degree burns, company officials said.
Witnesses reported seeing a red fireball and feeling the blast as far away as Charleston. The explosion, at about 10:25 p.m. Thursday, was heard at least as far away as Mink Shoals.
Thousands of residents between South Charleston and the Putnam County line were advised to take shelter in their homes, and the main highways through the area -- Interstate 64, U.S. 60 and W.Va. 25 -- were closed for several hours. The shelter advisory was lifted shortly after 2 a.m. and roads reopened an hour or so after that, officials said.
The incident could have been far worse, given the location of the explosion and the types of chemicals used and stored nearby, said Mike Dorsey, chief of homeland security and emergency response for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Dorsey said the unit that blew up contained a variety of dangerous caustics, and the Institute plant is best known for its production of methyl isocyanate, or MIC, the chemical that killed thousands of people at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, in December 1984.
"The thing that blew up was the least dangerous of the stuff that's in there," Dorsey said.
Bayer officials said in a statement that the explosion occurred in a portion of the plant known as the West Carbamoylation Center, where the company makes carbamate pesticides.
The plant makes the pesticide methomyl in the unit, but Bayer does not market that product. Instead, the company uses methomyl to make Larvin, its brand name of the insecticide thiodicarb. It is used to kill pests on cotton, corn and a variety of other vegetables. Larvin is a carbamate insecticide, a class of chemicals made from carbamic acid. Like organophosphate pesticides, these chemicals interfere with the conduction signals of the nervous system of insects, and in cases of poisoning with high levels of exposure, humans.
By itself, Larvin does not generally burn, according to a Bayer material safety data sheet.
But Crosby said the tank involved in Thursday night's blast contained a variety of waste products that were used to make or are created by the production of Larvin. Dorsey said officials were primarily concerned about the presence of methyl isobutyl ketone, or MIBK, a highly flammable solvent that helps to make Larvin.
"What you had was a huge amount of fuel, so there was a really big fire," Dorsey said. The tank also contained hexane and dimethyl disulfide, Dorsey said.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.
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