The Chemical Industry's Bhopal Legacy (is a non gun topic allowed?)

Soon thousands of people lay dead in the city's main roads. Every truck, taxi and ox cart was weighted down with injured and terrified refugees. No one in the emergency room at the city hospital knew what the toxic gases were or how to treat the thousands of patients that flooded into the hallways.


By morning, more than 5,000 people were dead, while a half million more were injured.

Recently, it's become even harder to track the chemical industry, since it has been working with the Bush Administration behind the veil of homeland security to conceal information about the "worst case disaster" for its facilities and the health threat posed by its products. But the picture that is emerging is a frightening one.


According to federal government sources, there are 123 chemical facilities nationwide that could kill at least one million people if they accidentally exploded or were attacked by terrorists. Some of these chemical factories are located in major American cities and put as many as 8 million lives at risk. Yet the chemical industry continues to resist any meaningful regulation that would require it to replace the most dangerous chemicals with safer alternatives. A recent "60 Minutes" expose vividly showed that many facilities lack even the most basic security protection, yet the government is spending billions of our tax dollars looking for chemical terrorists overseas.


http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17310


I work in the chemical industry and am curious what other DU's think about this.

Sure is bad news. Highly reactive stuff. Plus its small and volatile; thus its deadly effects.

This isn't particular to the chemical industry; whenever a profit motive is inolved, humans become a commodity like everything else to those people. Ever notice how the only way to stop companies from doing bad things is to make them pay dearly (monetarily) for it? sigh.

My feeling is that in the aftermath the Indians got what they deserved. I don't mean to imply that the actual accident was in any way deserved, but the subsequent abandonment by Union Carbide.

The very next day the CEO flies to India to take control of the situation and they throw his ass in jail on murder charges. Of course they didn't get shit out of the company after that. If I were in his shoes I would do the same thing. Not only would I never set foot in India again, I would forbid any employee or other representative of the compay from doing so lest they be taken hostage under some kind of legal pretense. Had the Indian government not tried to nuke the executive staff for an accident they probably would have gotten a much better settlement for the victims. Union Carbide might have cleaned up the plant and perhaps even put it back in operation with better safeguards. It is distressing that the innocent victims end up with the short end of the stick, but from the article it appears like their extreme misfortune was compounded by the poor judgement of their goverment.

Ten little, nine little, eight little indians.......

as a significant level of responsibility fall on the Indian government and the management of that plant.

Consider that;

India required the plant be run only by Indian workers. They are typically far less skilled that those in US plant. The turnover rate was very high. Training was nearly non-existent.

US engineers had recently audited the plant, but nothing was done with the audit results

The plant was run using Indian standards rather than US standards. Huge difference.

The isocyanate process was being operated far out of it's design parameters even thought it was against Union Carbide policy.

Safety process needed to operate this unit were offline because this process was offline. Again something against company policy.

The government nor Union Carbide did anything about the hundreds of thousands of squatters living in close proximity to the plant.

Of course the buck stops at the Union Carbide corporation, but I don't believe anyone in the US knew the plant was that mismanaged.

Speaking as one who had close ties to a highly placed insider at Carbide, it was virtually impossible to get the locals to follow proper procedure, which was necessary to preserve safety. Sad, but true.

that earlier this year Senator Corzine and the NY Daily News discovered that many chemical plants in this country had next to no security...and that most had yet to be contacted by the Department of Homeland Security to find out what seccurity they had. And just a few weeks ago Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes took a crew and just wandered into a facility...unhindered..

and frankly I was pretty disappointed in the level of fear mongering Corzine, Kroft and Prine engaged in.

Mind you there are problems that need to be addressed but the getting real facts out to the public would be nice.

Recently, it's become even harder to track the chemical industry, since it has been working with the Bush Administration behind the veil of homeland security to conceal information about the "worst case disaster" for its facilities and the health threat posed by its products. But the picture that is emerging is a frightening one.

This is BS. The 'worst case disasters' were scenarios mandated by the feds to inform the public. The methods mandated to determine these scenarios were pretty idiotic and not realistic to predict actual potential disasters.

This information was quite detailed and was posted on the internet for anyone to see. While informing the public about potential dangers, it also provided an easy road map for terrorists. Just point and click and you had a map with toxic plume data of various chemicals on your screen.

This data is presently being concealed from the public in order to PROTECT the public. The government and industry are developing ways to provide information to the public that meets it's needs, without providing a valuable information to those bent on killing people.

One last note the 'picture' is not really that frightening. It is concerning. Chemical facilities that pose genuine hazards to the public are taking step to minimize dangers and have been for years. Also the risks that have been reported to the government are largely overstated because of the methods used. As an example; if the government methods indicate 5 million people are at risk, in reality something like less than 100,000 are potentially at risk. Nothing to sneeze about mind you, but people should be dealing with facts not impossible scenarios in order to make informed decisions.