Incident Report

Subject:              CSB Deploys to Fatal Accident at Bayer CropScience in West Virginia       

Date of Email report:   Fri 29/08/2008

Report Detail:

Washington DC, August 29, 2008 - A five-member investigation team from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is deploying to the scene of a fatal explosion and fire at the Bayer CropScience plant located in Kanawha County, West Virginia. According to media reports, one person was killed and another was injured in the blast, which could be felt several miles away. The investigative team will be accompanied by CSB Chairman and CEO John Bresland, who will serve as the principal spokesperson. The team is expected to arrive late-evening on Friday. The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. The agency's board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. 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.
For more information, contact Amy McCormick, 202.378.7224 (accompanying team), or Hillary Cohen 202.261-3601 (office) 202.446.8094 (cell) in Washington D.C.

NEW: Safety Board to Begin Review of Deadly Institute Explosion
One Bayer CropScience employee is killed, a second injured.

CHARLESTON -- The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board will be at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute on Saturday after an explosion Thursday night left one man dead and another injured, according to company spokesman Tom Dover and a federal official. Occupation Safety & Health Administration inspectors were on site Friday morning, according to Prentice Cline, assistant area director for OSHA in Charleston. U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board Chairman and CEO John Bresland will be there Aug. 30 as part of a five-member team. Full investigations by the board usually take 12 to 18 months to complete, according Amy McCormick of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board..

Employee Barry Withrow was killed in the explosion, and employee Bill Oxley was injured. Oxley was taken to the West Penn Hospital burn unit in Pittsburgh. Both men were 20-plus year veterans at the company. A member of the company’s emergency response team affected by heat stress was treated at the infirmary and released, Dover said.

The explosion occurred in a new tank primarily containing Methyl Isobutyl Ketone, a byproduct of Methomyl. Methomyl that is used in Larvin, a pesticide and the main product in that section of the plant. The tank had been operational for about a week before the explosion. It was in the West Carbamoylation Center on the west side of the plant.

“It just came out of some extensive maintenance work, but it was all normal work,” Dover said. Some equipment had been replaced and upgraded, and the unit had been restarted. The tank typically ran four to seven months a year, so the restart was normal, he said.
“We were not aware of any problems that first week, but that’s the sort of thing that will come out as a result of the investigation,” he said. “It will take days and weeks, not hours, to understand this. Something happened last night in this equipment, and that’s going to be the focus of ongoing investigations.” In the meantime, he said, the unit will not be restarted until its safe operation can be assured and the company understands what occurred. Methy isobutyl ketone is highly flammable but not particularly toxic, according to Kathy Cosco, state Department of Environmental Protection public information officer. Other solvents may have been present in the tank, Dover said, but that was normal and should not have been of consequence.

OSHA will have six months to finalize the investigation; its last inspection was in October 2007. They do not do regular inspections as in the mining industry, Cline said, but instead conduct complete inspections according to certain criteria and during certain programs.
The plant has been inspected three times, according to OSHA’s Web site, twice in 2005 and once in 2007. In July 2005, that planned visit led to multiple violations, although eight of those were deleted in a settlement. The company ultimately paid $110,000 in fines, and the final violation was listed as unclassified. Two citations deleted in the settlement were listed as willful and eight as serious.
Dover said he did not have access to previous OSHA inspections, and no information about that would be available until next week.
The process was one that he said had been used at the plant for years. As part of an environmental program, the solvent was burned in the plant’s boiler system, producing steam, which was then used as an alternative fuel. The plant then burned off various gases, as well as natural gas, so the plant did not need to purchase natural gas or have to dispose of waste product.

Bayer purchased the plant in 2002 from Aventis CropSciences. Bayer acquired all of Aventis CropSciences and the processes there haven’t changed, Doyle said. “The plant was producing these products then,” he said.

http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=43316

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