United States Chemical Safety Board (USCSB) Thread

[Aaron Fox]

The USCSB has its own youtube channel, where it has several videos on various incidents in the various industries in the US.







You wouldn't believe how many times it's the company or the lack of regulations that are at fault...

 

[Bear Ribs]

Yeah, chemical hazards are one of those areas where regulation is really, really insufficient. The problem is that a dude screws up, say, roofing his own house, he gets a leak and suffers some loss. Dude screws up a chemical plant he dies, all the other workers die, everybody downwind suffers chronic health issues for the rest of their lives, all the fish downstream die and the river's toxic for years, and the land the chemical plant is on is salted for a century.

I recall when a textiles plant (long abandoned) burned down when I lived in Tennessee. Wasn't a fish to be caught out of that river for several years afterwards and half the town wound up with respiratory problems from the toxins coming off the burning chemical residue, and that was a shut-down plant that didn't even still have the chemicals stored in it.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Yeah, chemical hazards are one of those areas where regulation is really, really insufficient. The problem is that a dude screws up, say, roofing his own house, he gets a leak and suffers some loss. Dude screws up a chemical plant he dies, all the other workers die, everybody downwind suffers chronic health issues for the rest of their lives, all the fish downstream die and the river's toxic for years, and the land the chemical plant is on is salted for a century.

I recall when a textiles plant (long abandoned) burned down when I lived in Tennessee. Wasn't a fish to be caught out of that river for several years afterwards and half the town wound up with respiratory problems from the toxins coming off the burning chemical residue, and that was a shut-down plant that didn't even still have the chemicals stored in it.

I mean it's rare to hear the USCSB go 'the company did everything they could with the knowledge they had to prevent the disaster but the disaster still happened' like the 'Caught in the Storm' video.

Most of the time it's corpos being socio/psychopathic beings that don't give a fuck about their workers and want as much profit as possible.

Hell, we nearly had a Bhopal a while back.



All because a few corpo-bigwigs decided that it was better to force everyone to keep quiet than solve the situation.

 

[Zachowon]

Attorney Tom covers these from time to time

 

[Aaron Fox]

Attorney Tom covers these from time to time

I bet he would have only unflattering words to say at the sheer stupidity and greed the corpo-bigwigs would do outside of a few exceptions... but that's a sucker's bet.

 

[Aaron Fox]

The latest investigation with a video is yet another 'hot work' incident where employees without guidelines tried to troubleshoot a problem and caused a major fire...

... seriously, this is just... wow. This is why I'm all for regulating the shit out of pretty much everything because people won't figure things out themselves.

 

[Aaron Fox]

So, yeah, an 'indestructible' elbow pipe ruptured, the crew quickly took all steps to limit the damage (including a supervisor activating the fire suppression system manually because the explosion knocked out the automatics), and hydrofluoric acid was largely contained.

 

[bintananth]

So, yeah, an 'indestructible' elbow pipe ruptured, the crew quickly took all steps to limit the damage (including a supervisor activating the fire suppression system manually because the explosion knocked out the automatics), and hydrofluoric acid was largely contained.

Hydrofluoric Acid was mentioned in the video.

Um, if that's one of the combustion products you're dealing with a halogen fire which probably can't be extinguished by any known means.

Fluorine:
- Reacts with: practically everything
- Extinguishing methods: none

According to John D. Clark halogen fires are "a sight to behold, from a safe distance".

 

[Aaron Fox]

Hydrofluoric Acid was mentioned in the video.

Um, if that's one of the combustion products you're dealing with a halogen fire which probably can't be extinguished by any known means.

Fluorine:
- Reacts with: practically everything
- Extinguishing methods: none

According to John D. Clark halogen fires are "a sight to behold, from a safe distance".

First, the fire is a mostly propane fire with a tiny bit of HF (the moment that the leak was detected, the board engineer immediately put the HF into a reinforced storage tank as per procedure, vastly limiting the amount of HF in the fire), and second, the water system was supposed to keep the HF contained (i.e. not spread throughout the atmosphere), not put out a possible HF fire.

 

[bintananth]

First, the fire is a mostly propane fire with a tiny bit of HF (the moment that the leak was detected, the board engineer immediately put the HF into a reinforced storage tank as per procedure, vastly limiting the amount of HF in the fire), and second, the water system was supposed to keep the HF contained (i.e. not spread throughout the atmosphere), not put out a possible HF fire.

I'm used to my youngest sister's antics ...

Her idea of proper lab safety includes liquid helium and an escape route.

 

[Typhonis]

I'm used to my youngest sister's antics ...

Her idea of proper lab safety includes liquid helium and an escape route.

Used to be Two chemicals that gave me the Heebie Geebies, Chlorine Trifluoride, and FOOF. I guess there is now a third chemical to add to the mix.

 

[bintananth]

Used to be Two chemicals that gave me the Heebie Geebies, Chlorine Trifluoride, and FOOF. I guess there is now a third chemical to add to the mix.

I don't want to know what any of the things Arthur has in her lab actually are.

Perfluoric Acid (HFO4) - which is theoretically impossible, BTW - is something she has found more than once.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Used to be Two chemicals that gave me the Heebie Geebies, Chlorine Trifluoride, and FOOF. I guess there is now a third chemical to add to the mix.

Diazidomethyleneazine?

 

[bintananth]

Diazidomethyleneazine?

If you're playing with that you're about as batshit crazy as my youngest sis. Even she might say "NOPE!" to the prospect of that showing up in her lab.

That is a mushroom cloud in search of an excuse to say "Hello!" to everyone within miles.

 

[Typhonis]

Difluorine dioxide

 

[bintananth]

Difluorine dioxide

FOOF?

Dimethyl mercury - ((CH3)2)Hg - makes that look safe.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Basically, a company hid their high-pressure water vessel (basically an oversized water heater) from the city and, due to improper repairs and lack of safety management, caused the deaths of not only a worker at the factory but also civilians.

Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised that any attempts to enforce the regulations will get met by businesses pulling an anti-regulatory propaganda campaign...

 

[ProfessorCurio]

Basically, a company hid their high-pressure water vessel (basically an oversized water heater) from the city and, due to improper repairs and lack of safety management, caused the deaths of not only a worker at the factory but also civilians.

Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised that any attempts to enforce the regulations will get met by businesses pulling an anti-regulatory propaganda campaign...

To be fair some regulations while necessary to ensure safety are not properly reviewed and as a result can be flawed.
I know of one particular case in which a worker was operating over water with a harness and due to the required set up in the event of the crane collapsing would have been dragged down and drowned with no way to reach and release to get back up to the surface.
While some risk is inevitable those handling such matters ought to have a moral obligation to minimize what they reasonably can.

 

[Robovski]

Basically, a company hid their high-pressure water vessel (basically an oversized water heater) from the city and, due to improper repairs and lack of safety management, caused the deaths of not only a worker at the factory but also civilians.

Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised that any attempts to enforce the regulations will get met by businesses pulling an anti-regulatory propaganda campaign...

Civilians deaths in this case should be considered depraved indifference by management. I wish I could expect jail time for that.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Civilians deaths in this case should be considered depraved indifference by management. I wish I could expect jail time for that.

Here's the thing, if governments tried to do that, you'll get major pushback from businesses. Walmart gets away with a lot of shit because all it has to say to a politician is 'nice unemployment figures you've got there, it would be a crying shame if something happened to them'.

This is why, at this point, we need less and less important regulatory positions directly tied to politics in general... but people assume that democracy solves everything when the reality is vastly different.

To be fair some regulations while necessary to ensure safety are not properly reviewed and as a result can be flawed.
I know of one particular case in which a worker was operating over water with a harness and due to the required set up in the event of the crane collapsing would have been dragged down and drowned with no way to reach and release to get back up to the surface.
While some risk is inevitable those handling such matters ought to have a moral obligation to minimize what they reasonably can.

Here's the thing, every single of those regulations is written the blood of dead workers and citizens. Every. Single. One. All because businesses would rather pull shit like this than do anything for safety because safety cuts into the bottom line. Don't give me the 'people are willing to pay for safer work environments' spiel, that doesn't work. That is why we need every single of those regulations.