Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 07:42:19 -0400
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From: Ralph Stuart <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: Chemical Safety headlines from Google

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I-25 OPEN AFTER ASPHALT TRUCK ROLLS, http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=146371&amp ;catid=339

NORTHGLENN - A truck carrying roofing asphalt rolled, closing a part of southbound Interstate 25 for over four hours on Sunday.

North Metro Fire says the truck was carrying 500 gallons of the molten asphalt when it rolled near the 104th Avenue exit on southbound I-25 around noon. Hazmat was called to the scene to clean up the 200 gallons of asphalt that was spilled when the truck rolled.

The highway was closed at 120th Avenue and reopened a little after 4 p.m.

No other vehicle was involved according to authorities. One adult male was transported to Denver Health Medical Center with minor injuries.

No official statement has been issued as to what caused the rollover to happen.

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CHEMICAL PLANT WORKER RECEIVED 2ND DEGREE BURNS | RECEIVED, 2ND, WORKER - LOCAL NEWS -, http://ww w.kfdm.com/news/received-38830-2nd-worker.html

The Battalion Chief for the Port Arthur Police Department said a worker inside a chemical plant received 2nd degree burns earlier today.

Firefighters responded to KM Tex around 10:30 this morning.

The Battalion Chief said the worker was burned when a fire flashed over at a pump transfer station.

The facility is located on 2400 block of South Gulfway drive on the Intercoastal Waterway.

Investigators say the fire started in a pump house in an area where products are loaded and off loaded. Investigators say the worker received 2nd degree burns but refused medical treatment.

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DU UNVEILS ITS NEW LAB MANUAL - HINDUSTAN TIMES, http://www.hindustantimes.com/DU-unveils-its-new-lab-manua l/Article1-580576.aspx

Bright posters and a 200-page manual will guide the students and teachers of Delhi University (DU) on what precautions to take while conducting experiments in its chemistry laboratories. Following the aftermath of the Cobalt 60 mishap, as a first step towards checking such instances in future, the 

Delhi University has decided to come up with informative posters and a manual.
In February this year, DU=92s Chemistry department had sold a =93Gamma Irradiator=94, which contained Cobalt 60, as scrap. Later, due to a leak of Cobalt 60 =97 a radioactive substance =97 from the instrument, one person died and three others fell ill in Mayapuri. 

=93The Cobalt 60 incident was an eye-opener. On reviewing existing safety measures for students in laboratories, we found that basic guidelines on how to handle chemicals were missing. That=92s why the manual and the posters,=94 said AK Bakshi, director of Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILLL) and Head of the Department of Chemistry.

The manual and the posters, which have been prepared by the ILLL, are in the final stages. A meeting of chemistry teachers from the department and various colleges will be held on August 3.

=93The teachers will be shown the posters and manuals for suggestions to improvise on them further,=94 said Bakshi.

While one of the posters lists  the do=92s and don=92ts while conducting experiments, the other lists chemicals and their symbols, while the third has a list of first-aid measures to follow in case of a laboratory accident.

The manual contains names of 195 chemicals, arranged alphabetically, which are commonly used, their properties, how to handle and store them and how they look when in a bottle and outside it.

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LAB BLAST RAISES SAFETY AWARENESS | LUBBOCK ONLINE | LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL, http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2010-07-31/lab-blast-r aises-safety-awareness

Texas Tech is staging a drastic overhaul of its research safety policies after a laboratory explosion in January sent a doctoral candidate to a hospital with severe burns to his hands and face.

The 29-year-old student, Preston Brown, has since returned to his studies, but federal and university officials have launched probes to vet the school=92s safety policies and recommend ways to bring them up to speed with its research engine.

Tech is still awaiting the findings of a U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) investigation, but an internal task force released a report last week urging a university-wide push to improve research safety.

University officials have also completed a separate in-house investigation specifically into Brown=92s accident.

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RESIDENTS EVACUATED AFTER CHEMICAL FIRE - WESTLOTHIAN COURIER, http://www.westlothiancourier.co.uk/ 2010/07/29/residents-evacuated-after-chemical-fire-62405-26950241/

DOZENS of residents in a West Lothian village were evacuated from their homes at the weekend due to a chemical fire.
Firefighters attending the blaze, which began inside a garage in Bellsmill Terrace, Winchburgh, on Saturday night, discovered explosive acetylene gas cylinders in the building.
They decided that the canisters posed a risk to the public and asked local people to leave their homes and go to the village=92s community centre.
And now fire crews have thanked the villagers for their co-operation.

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ALL LANES OF I-10 REOPEN FOLLOWING 18-WHEELER CRASH - WAFB CHANNEL 9, BATON ROUGE, LA |, http://www.wafb .com/Global/story.asp?S=12897445

RAMAH, LA (WAFB) - Louisiana State Police reopened all lanes of Interstate 10 early Friday morning after an overturned 18-wheeler caused a shutdown for several hours.

The tractor trailer overturned Thursday afternoon on I-10 near Grosse Tete, causing it to leak sodium hydroxide, also known as lye.

According to troopers, all lanes on I-10 west at the Lobdell/LA 415 exit and on I-10 east at the Ramah exit were officially opened at 3:50 a.m.

A hazmat crew worked to contain the sodium hydroxide, which according to the CDC, can cause eye and skin irritation.

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HAZMAT CREWS CALLED TO SCENE OF ACCIDENT - KAIT-JONESBORO, AR-NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS, CLASSIFIEDS-, http://www.kai t8.com/Global/story.asp?S=12892051

JONESBORO, AR (KAIT) - Highway lanes are reopening and safety crews are leaving after the stir of an accident on E Nettleton settles.

According to reports, a Dodge truck was traveling on Highway 18 when it struck a farm truck trailer in the rear. The collision broke a container holding mixed chemicals.

Before fire and hazmat crews arrived, the farmer owning the land was able to dam a ditch the chemicals ran into with a backhoe before the chemicals were able spread any further.

There are no injuries reported.

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CHINA GRAPPLES WITH BLAST, CHEMICAL SPILL IN LATEST ACCIDENTS - BLOOMBERG, http://www.bloomberg .com/news/2010-07-29/china-grapples-with-factory-explosion-chemical-spill- in-latest-accidents.html

China sent hundreds of officials to assist people hurt in a gas-pipeline blast in the city of Nanjing and to retrieve 3,000 barrels of hazardous chemicals that washed into a river in Jilin as authorities grappled with the latest in a string of industrial accidents.

The explosion at an abandoned factory in the eastern city of Nanjing killed at least 12 people and left another 15 seriously injured, state broadcaster China Central Television reported late yesterday. Workers demolishing buildings at the Nanjing No. 4 Plastics Factory damaged a propylene pipeline, causing the blast, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

=93It felt like an earthquake,=94 said Chen Ming, a resident who lives less than 500 meters from the site of the explosion. =93Things fell from the shelves and hit me. I ran out of my house and found everyone was standing outside.=94

The accidents in Nanjing and Jilin yesterday followed an acid leak at Zijin Mining Group Co.=92s copper and gold mines in the eastern province of Fujian and an oil spill in northeastern China that shut beaches and a port this month. China=92s work safety administration last week ordered intensified measures at factories, mines and construction sites to prevent accidents.

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HAZARDOUS CHEMICAL LEAK SHUTS-DOWN A WEST ASHLEY KMART|ABC NEWS 4, http://www.wciv .com/news/stories/0710/759792.html

West Ashley, SC - A hazardous chemical leak shuts down a West Ashley Kmart for most of the day Thursday.

=93My wife and I, we were in the Kmart store earlier this morning.  Everything was clear when we went in.  We stayed in for about 5 minutes and then all of the sudden there was a mist of white little smoke,=94 said customer Bobby Ray Cherry.

That mist turned out to be a chemical used in the air conditioning unit called R-22. 
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Cherry says he saw it coming from vents in the ceiling.

=93I asked my wife, do you smell any smoke?  I said where is that mist coming from?  We need to evacuate, because we don=92t know what that is, so we just left the store,=94 said Cherry.

Kmart and the adjacent Sears were both evacuated.

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HAZARDOUS COMPOUND IS FOUND IN TRASH BIN AT UF SORORITY HOUSE | GAINESVILLE.COM, http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100723/ARTICLES/7231008/1002

University of Florida police made an unusual discovery Tuesday at a campus sorority: a cancer-causing compound left in a Dumpster.


A handyman at the Alpha Delta Phi sorority initially reported finding a glass bottle with a hazardous materials warning on it. Police later discovered the bottle contained cadmium chloride.

The substance contains cadmium, which is a cancer hazard, and its dust can cause lung and kidney disease, according to its warning label.

Police also made another discovery in the garbage bag containing the bottle: several financial statements belonging to James Weidner, according to a police report.

Weidner, 81, is a retired agronomy professor. He told police he had accumulated lots of chemicals over the years and that his wife threw away the bottle for him, according to the report.

His wife, Nina, works as a sorority chef and threw away the substance thinking it was non-toxic, she said Thursday when reached by phone.

Police decided against pursuing the matter because there was no criminal intent, police spokesman Capt. Jeff Holcomb said. The matter was referred to UF's environmental health and safety department for possible action by environmental regulators, he said.

&gt;The woman who threw it out thought it was non-toxic.

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DANGER IN SCHOOL LABS: ACCIDENTS HAUNT EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=danger-in-schoo l-labs

The day Sheharbano =93Sheri=94 Sangji, a 23-year-old technician at the University of California, Los Angeles, undertook what would be her last task, she wore a sweatshirt and no lab coat. That late December afternoon in 2008, she started working with a liquid called t-butyl lithium. The chemical requires careful handling, because as a pyrophoric, it catches fire when exposed to air. But equipment malfunctioned, and the fluid spilled, setting the synthetic fibers of her clothing ablaze. Two postdocs ran to help douse the fire engulfing Sangji, but they failed to get her to the nearby shower. Emergency personnel raced to the scene, but they arrived too late. She spent 18 days in a hospital burn unit before she died.

Sangji=92s catastrophe highlights widely unsuspected risks in many schools. =93Most academic laboratories are unsafe venues for work or study,=94 wrote safety expert Neal Langerman in the May/June 2009 Journal of Chemical Health and Safety. He termed the fatality =93totally and unquestionably pre vent=ADable.=94 Both Patrick Harran, a chemist and director of the U.C.L.A. lab where Sangji worked, and Chancellor Gene Block independently described Sangji=92s case as a =93tragic accident.=94 =93As we continue to mourn Sheri=92s death and grieve for her family, we are determined to rededicate ourselves to ensuring the safety of each and every member of our entire Bruin family,=94 Block said in a statement. U.C.L.A. and other universities instituted reforms and reportedly reviewed their safety procedures.

To the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), however, the incident was not a mere misfortune. Cal/OSHA uncovered life-threatening safety violations, including lack of proper training and protective clothing. It also found that U.C.L.A. failed to make a required report of a similar, but nonfatal incident with another student more than a year before Sangji=92s. Had reforms happened after that event, Sangji=92s fate might have been different. Cal/OSHA imposed nearly $32,000 in fines (uncontested by U.C.L.A.) in her death.

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