From: "Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety" <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines from Google (10 articles)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 08:25:40 -0400
Reply-To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU>
Message-ID: B02F6564-2292-44F0-9F02-ED662350EC1E**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org


Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 at 7:27:51 AM

A service of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas

Table of Contents (10 articles)

HAZMAT MATERIAL TURNS OUT TO BE WHEEL CLEANER
Tags: us_CA, public, release, response, cleaners

OFFICIAL SAYS MECHANICAL FAILURE CAUSED FOOD LAB BLAST
Tags: us_NJ, laboratory, follow-up, injury, unknown_chemical

GREEN BAY POLICE TREATED FOR CHEMICAL EXPOSURE
Tags: us_WI, public, release, injury, fire_extinguisher

CHEMICAL THAT CAUSED CLOVELLY PARK EVACUATION FOUND IN VAPOUR FORM AT HENDON CHILD CARE CENTRE
Tags: Australia, public, release, environmental, pce, toxics

MFG CHEMICAL PLANT WORKER DESCRIBES HIS LIFE-SAVING RESCUE
Tags: us_GA, industrial, follow-up, injury, maleic_anhydride

CHEMICAL SPILL SOAKS RIVER, KILLS FISH IN QUEBEC
Tags: Canada, industrial, release, environmental, bleach

NEIGHBORHOOD BEING SPRAYED DOWN AFTER CHEMICAL SCARE
Tags: us_TX, public, follow-up, environmental, waste

EXPERT URGES FIREFIGHTERS TO IMPROVE CHEMICAL FIRE CONTROL
Tags: Taiwan, industrial, follow-up, death, flammables

MEDWAY: WORKER INJURED AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_MA, industrial, release, injury, acids

ONE EXPOSED TO CHEMICAL SPILL AT CHANDLER INTEL PLANT
Tags: us_AZ, industrial, release, response, unknown_chemical


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HAZMAT MATERIAL TURNS OUT TO BE WHEEL CLEANER
Tags: us_CA, public, release, response, cleaners

VICTORVILLE ? Twenty gallons of wheel cleaner was diluted and washed down storm drains in the 16200 block of La Cubre Drive on Monday afternoon after it was deemed harmless to the public by HAZMAT crews.
San Bernardino County Fire Department Capt. Jay Hausman said firefighters were dispatched to a call of an unknown chemical in the area of La Cubre and Redondo drives just before 1:30 p.m.
Hausman said one fire engine responded and found about 20 gallons of a ?bright purple liquid? in the gutter. He said firefighters could not identify the substance and a HAZMAT crew was called out to identify it.
La Cubre Drive was closed in the area of Redondo Drive for an hour and a half while crews attempted to identify the substance. Hausman said it was eventually determined to be wheel cleaner made by the company Armor-All.
?It was determined that it would not cause a hazard to the public, it was diluted with copious amounts of water and washed down the gutters,? Hausman said.

---------------------------------------------

OFFICIAL SAYS MECHANICAL FAILURE CAUSED FOOD LAB BLAST
Tags: us_NJ, laboratory, follow-up, injury, unknown_chemical

TOTOWA, N.J. (AP) -- A fire official says a mechanical failure apparently caused two explosions at a food laboratory in northern New Jersey, leaving two workers with cuts and bruises.

Totowa Fire Marshal Allen Del Vecchio tells The Star-Ledger (http://bit.ly/1mcP22T">http://bit.ly/1mcP22T ) he felt the blast from Pharmachem Laboratories in Totowa at his house a mile away.

Pharmachem produces ingredients that flavor foods. Workers say they had just started on a new recipe for eggnog when the blast occurred.

Del Vecchio says the first explosion apparently came from a furnace-like device that was heating a vat containing eggnog flavoring ingredients. A subsequent blast apparently involved a pocket of hot air or gas that had built up inside the vat.

The entire rear of the building was blown out.

Del Vecchio said several people could have been killed in the blast, had it not been a weekend when only a skeleton crew was present.

---------------------------------------------

GREEN BAY POLICE TREATED FOR CHEMICAL EXPOSURE
Tags: us_WI, public, release, injury, fire_extinguisher

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) ? Four Green Bay police officers have been treated at a local hospital after being exposed to fire extinguisher chemicals during an arrest.

The Green Bay Police Department says the officers responded to a possible hostage situation involving a knife Monday. A person involved sprayed a fire extinguisher inside a hallway in the apartment building before police arrived.

The four officers exposed to the chemicals were released to return to work.

Police say four people were arrested and two were referred to the Brown County district attorney for charges.

They say the fire department asked tenants to leave the building because of the chemicals. The American Red Cross is assisting them until they can return.

---------------------------------------------

CHEMICAL THAT CAUSED CLOVELLY PARK EVACUATION FOUND IN VAPOUR FORM AT HENDON CHILD CARE CENTRE
Tags: Australia, public, release, environmental, pce, toxics

TOXIC chemicals found in groundwater at Hendon and vapours seeping into a child care centre pose ?no risk? according to officials, but they will conduct further testing.

More than 3000 residents in the Hendon/Albert Park/Seaton/Royal Park area are being alerted today by a letterbox drop that the same chemical which caused the evacuation of part of Clovelly Park has been found in groundwater and in vapour in the crawl space beneath a child care centre.

SEE A MAP OF THE AFFECTED AREA HERE

A press conference detailing the situation was held this afternoon, but The Advertiser has independently learned the tests show trichloroethene (TCE) as well as perchloroethene (PCE) and dichloroethene (DCE) in the groundwater.

The vapours detected in the crawl space at the child care centre warrant further indoor air sampling, but will not cause the centre to shut even temporarily, according to the Environment Protection Authority.

---------------------------------------------

MFG CHEMICAL PLANT WORKER DESCRIBES HIS LIFE-SAVING RESCUE
Tags: us_GA, industrial, follow-up, injury, maleic_anhydride

Aug. 04--"I remember I heard a small explosion and then within seconds the room started filling with gas."

Patrick Bryant said he was working in a lab at MFG Chemical on Kimberly Park Drive on a seemingly normal workday the morning of July 7. Then, at approximately 5:30 a.m., Bryant remembers hearing the event caused by a reactor that injured another employee, Jason Jeffers, 28, of Chatsworth.

Bryant, 26, of Calhoun, said he was one of the first to evacuate the building but soon realized Jeffers was still inside.

"I don't know, I had a gut feeling he hadn't made it out yet," Bryant said.

Bryant said he, along with his supervisor and another employee, went back inside the building hoping to find Jeffers. He said he did not have a respirator mask since he worked in the lab.

"I've never had a respirator but that one day I put on a respirator mask I found and it fit perfectly," he said.

Bryant said he searched through the gas for approximately 10 minutes before going back outside to see if Jeffers had made it out. Realizing that Jeffers was still inside, Bryant went in a second time, he said.

"So we went back in for the second time and we split up," he said. "I wandered around for about a minute and I found him. He was up against the wall and his eyes were all black. He was foaming from the mouth from the maleic anhydride reacting inside his lungs and he was having a seizure."

Bryant said he picked Jeffers up and started walking toward the door. As a result of Jeffers' seizure, Bryant's respirator mask and hard hat were knocked off. Jeffers' body went limp and Bryant said he walked to the door without a mask, breathing in gas for approximately a minute.

---------------------------------------------

CHEMICAL SPILL SOAKS RIVER, KILLS FISH IN QUEBEC
Tags: Canada, industrial, release, environmental, bleach

KINGSEY FALLS, Que. -- Environmental emergency workers have been deployed after a chemical spill in the Quebec town of Kingsey Falls.
About 500 litres of an industrial bleach splashed onto soil and into the southwest branch of the Nicolet River when a container tipped over at Cascades Inc.'s Norampac plant.
Cascades spokesman Hugo D'Amours explained that the container smashed in the factory's yard and about half of its contents were released.

D'Amours said emergency measures were immediately put in place to contain and clean up the spill.
However, fish were found dead over a distance of roughly 300 metres in the river.

---------------------------------------------

NEIGHBORHOOD BEING SPRAYED DOWN AFTER CHEMICAL SCARE
Tags: us_TX, public, follow-up, environmental, waste

HOUSTON ? On Monday, a chemical leak continued to be cleaned up in a southeast Houston neighborhood ? a cleanup that now involves federal agencies.

The leak is from the former CES Waste Disposal plant that used to recycle and dispose of chemical materials. It was shut down five years ago by federal and state authorities, but many potentially hazardous chemicals remain and are unguarded.

The site is now under the control of a trustee appointed by the U.S. bankruptcy court. Over the weekend that trustee allowed several environmental cleanup agencies onto the premises to help cleanup.

Meanwhile, surrounding residents say they've gotten few answers as to what's going on.

"It's just a foul, like nauseating, chemical like smell," that's how one resident, Sherelle Hill, describes the odor that's been plaguing her neighborhood for days.

---------------------------------------------

EXPERT URGES FIREFIGHTERS TO IMPROVE CHEMICAL FIRE CONTROL
Tags: Taiwan, industrial, follow-up, death, flammables

Taipei, Aug. 5 (CNA) Firefighters should improve their ability to prevent and control chemical fires in the wake of the gas explosions that killed dozens in Kaohsiung last week, a researcher with the state-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said Tuesday.

"I think even firefighters need to learn how to deal with (this incident)," Tseng Fan-ming, division administrator at the materials and chemical industrial division of the Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center of ITRI, told CNA in a telephone interview.

He said it is difficult for firefighters to identify what kind of gas was leaking at the scene because different kinds of highly flammable petrochemical products, such as ethylene, propylene and butane, are identified using different tests and different equipment.

---------------------------------------------

MEDWAY: WORKER INJURED AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_MA, industrial, release, injury, acids

MEDWAY - Firefighters and HAZMAT professionals responded to a business on Industrial Park Road after a large amount of harmful chemicals were spilled, sending an employee to the hospital Sunday morning.
According to Fire Chief Jeff Lynch, a worker at Microgroup, at 7 Industrial Park Road, was "transferring a liquid from one vessel to another" when the spill occurred just before 10 a.m.
He said about 16 to 20 ounces of the chemical was spilled.
He identified the liquid as nitric hydrochloric acid, which the worker came into contact with.
"It?ll burn you," Lynch said, adding that fumes from the chemical can generate a toxic gas if it comes into contact with water.

---------------------------------------------

ONE EXPOSED TO CHEMICAL SPILL AT CHANDLER INTEL PLANT
Tags: us_AZ, industrial, release, response, unknown_chemical

A chemical spill at the Intel plant near Ocotillo and Dobson roads in Chandler prompted an emergency medical response around 11:15 Monday morning, according to the Chandler Fire Department.

A minor chemical spill occurred in the loading dock, according to Keith Welch, a Chandler fire spokesman.

One Intel employee was exposed to the chemical and evaluated on-site, Welch said.

The individual refused to be transported to the hospital.

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Ralph Stuart
secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Secretary
Division of Chemical Health and Safety
American Chemical Society

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