Dust Cloud Settles Over Industries

The Wall Street Journal

Dust Cloud Settles Over Industries
Georgia Blast Prompts Regulatory Debate; 13 Die, Steel Melts, Sugar Flows Like Lava
By PAULO PRADA, BETSY MCKAY and STEPHANIE CHEN
May 2, 2008; Page A1

PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. -- Not long after George Sexton was hired in 1984 at the big sugar refinery on the Savannah River here, he was shown a video warning that the dust thrown off by sugar processing could be "more explosive than dynamite." And for the next 24 years, he says, little more was said about the risk. Then, on the night of Feb. 7, as Mr. Sexton was boiling liquid sugar in massive iron pans to turn it into crystals, he was knocked out of his chair by the "loudest ka-boom I ever heard in my life." The four-story building at the heart of the Imperial Sugar Co. shook. Embers and debris blasted across the 155-acre complex, and a column of flame shot hundreds of feet into the air. Mr. Sexton, who had been about 50 yards from the explosion's suspected center, roused himself and inched through the dark plant, helping a badly burned co-worker along the way.

Superheated sugar flowed like lava until it cooled and formed rock-hard barriers. The building's steel frame melted. It took firefighters a week to finally put out the fire. The disaster at the 91-year-old factory, known for its "Dixie Crystals" brand, killed 13 of Mr. Sexton's co-workers and injured 45 others -- the deadliest such accident in more than 25 years. It will be months before investigators know what ignited the sugar dust, but the Imperial accident has cast a harsh light on how effectively the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, manufacturers, and local officials police the risk of dust explosions.

Although crews at the Georgia refinery swept the floors and a special ventilation system scrubbed the air, investigators say residue on the rubble shows that motes of sugar had built up along beams and other surfaces that may have been beyond the reach of everyday cleaning. They believe that residue ignited when a smaller, initial blast stirred up the dust. "They don't see it, they don't clean it, because they don't realize the hazard is there," says John Vorderbrueggen, lead investigator for the blast at the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency that probes chemical accidents. "I wouldn't call it negligence. I'm sure any company, if they had an awareness that a hazard existed, they would take corrective action. So it's really an ignorance issue."

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Dust is surprisingly pervasive and lethal. Factories in industries from sugar to drugs to plastics produce combustible dust that can detonate from as little as the static electricity caused by the movement of the particles themselves. A safety-board study found that 281 industrial dust-related fires and explosions killed 119 people and caused more than 718 injuries in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005. Preliminary safety-board figures show things have gotten worse in the past three years: There have been an additional 67 fires or explosions, killing 14 and injuring 70. Of the four deadliest accidents the board has investigated since it was created in 1998 three have been caused by dust.

Since the Imperial explosion, lawmakers have become so concerned that the House passed a bill Wednesday that would force OSHA to adopt recommendations made by the National Fire Protection Association to prevent accidents caused by combustible dust, giving OSHA 18 months to write its own regulations. Though the Senate must still vote, the White House has echoed OSHA concerns that the association's recommendations are too specific to be realistically applied to the more than 200,000 workplaces where dust is a threat.. For years, safety experts have argued that factories underestimate the risk of dust explosions, especially in industries where the product is not considered unstable on its own. Explosions in grain elevators had become so common and deadly in the late 1970s that five incidents killed 59 people and injured 48 in December 1977 alone. Recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences in the early 1980s led to standards adopted by OSHA in 1987 on how to prevent explosions in grain facilities. A 2003 report concluded that blasts had decreased 42% and fatalities had declined 70% under the new rules. But OSHA, which makes and enforces workplace-safety rules, has resisted for more than a year the safety board's recommendations that it develop specific standards for the many other industries, such as sugar, that produce combustible dust... Instead, OSHA relies on cleanliness standards scattered throughout its regulations, including one that requires any workplace to be "clean and orderly and in a sanitary condition."

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