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: Mon, 7 Dec 2015 07:36:39 -0500
Reply-To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU>
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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Monday, December 7, 2015 at 7:36:18 AM

A membership benefit of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
All article summaries and tags are archived at https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__pinboard.in_u-3Adchas&d=BQIFaQ&c=lb62iw4YL4RFalcE2hQUQealT9-RXrryqt9KZX2qu2s&r=meWM1Buqv4IQ27AlK1OJRjcQl09S1Zta6YXKalY_Io0&m=WRlPiuguZzNwM8vUwqG3a_1ODmD7JeQTt4bcLHTtUU0&s=Qrh3cC_mWSDkV9m6SKyjdTJMbPZlXCueG8mzAn0MgMk&e=

Table of Contents (10 articles)

FIRE AT NORTH SIDE SCRAP YARD PROMPTS HAZMAT RESPONSE
Tags: us_IL, industrial, fire, response, waste

CLEANUP FOLLOWING 1982 TRAIN DERAILMENT IN LIVINGSTON NEAR AN END
Tags: us_la, transportation, release, enviromental

MAN CHARGED AFTER FLYING DRONE NEAR LOCKPORT CHEMICAL PLANT
Tags: us_NY, industrial, discovery, environmental, illegal, phosgene

SCIENCE FOR ALL: HOW TO MAKE FREE, OPEN SOURCE LABORATORY HARDWARE
Tags: laboratory, discovery, environmental

KWES NEWSWEST 9 / MIDLAND, ODESSA, BIG SPRING, TX: NEWSWEST9.COM |
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, injury, methane, natural_gas, petroleum

THREE KILLED IN CHEMICAL FACTORY EXPLOSION NEAR AMATTUR
Tags: India, industrial, explosion, death, aluminum_dust

CONTRACTOR TO BEGIN EXCAVATION AT SPILL SITE MONDAY
Tags: us_WV, industrial, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical

CHEMICAL SAFETY HEADING TOWARDS ANIMAL-FREE ASSESSMENTS WITH ‰?Â50M INVESTMENT PROGRAMME
Tags: Switzerland, industrial, discovery, environmental, other_chemical

FREMONT: FIRE CREWS INVESTIGATE CHEMICAL SPILL NEAR SKYWAY COURT
Tags: us_CA, transportation, release, injury, acids, hydrochloric_acid, hydrofluoric_acid, waste

FOOD AND DRINK FIRM FINED FOR CHEMICAL BURNS
Tags: United_Kingdom, industrial, follow-up, injury, corrosives


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FIRE AT NORTH SIDE SCRAP YARD PROMPTS HAZMAT RESPONSE
Tags: us_IL, industrial, fire, response, waste

A fire at an auto scrap yard prompted a HazMat response Sunday morning in the North Side Ranch Triangle neighborhood.

The blaze started about 9 a.m. at the yard near Cortland and Marcey streets, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

Heavy smoke and flames could be seen billowing from a pile of discarded vehicles.

The fire was extinguished by about 11:15 a.m., fire officials said.

While no one was hurt, Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) and Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) called attention to the hazards at the General Iron Industries site, recalling a July explosion at the same location

‰??Our office receives increasing phone calls about their operations as a nuisance and a community meeting revealed growing concern with this facility being so close to an expanding residential community,‰?? Smith said in a statement. ‰??The fire and explosion elevates this to an immediate question of safety.‰??

Officials from the Chicago Department of Public Health joined fire officials in their investigation, Hopkins said in a statement. He also expressed concerns about the water used to extinguish the fire, which he fears will drain into the north branch of the river.

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

CLEANUP FOLLOWING 1982 TRAIN DERAILMENT IN LIVINGSTON NEAR AN END
Tags: us_la, transportation, release, enviromental

LIVINGSTON ‰?? The wreckage splintered the pines like matchsticks and sowed the field with flames.

But even after the last fire had been snuffed out, a more insidious threat had leached into the earth beneath Livingston.

At 5:12 a.m. Sept. 28, 1982, an Illinois Central Gulf freight train staffed by a crew that had been drinking bourbon ran off the tracks just north of the Livingston Town Hall. Of the 43 cars that derailed, 34 contained hazardous materials or flammable petroleum products, and many breached, burned and exploded, spewing toxic vapors over the town.

Residents woke up thinking they had been thrown into a war zone or the path of an earthquake. One told a reporter she thought the world was coming to an end.

‰??We were so unprepared for something like this. ... In no way were we prepared to deal with this,‰?? recalled Mayor Derral Jones, who was the fire chief at the time.

‰??We had one raggedy-ass old truck and about six guys who didn‰??t know what they were doing led by one guy who sure as hell didn‰??t know what he was doing,‰?? the former chief said of himself. ‰??I said, ‰??Hell, I don‰??t know what to do, we‰??ll just evacuate everybody.‰?? ... No one could deal with that mess.‰??

The carnage was so great that it forced state agencies to re-examine their handling of hazardous material response.

Somehow, no one died in the disaster, a fact people around Livingston are quick to point out in a tone that expresses gratitude and a twinge of disbelief, even decades later.

And while life didn‰??t end that morning in 1982, for the town, it paused. First came the evacuations ‰?? over 3,000 people cleared from their homes, some for weeks. There was short-term emergency clean-up and the inevitable lawsuits. Rebuilding followed, and years of health monitoring.

The town is still in the age of the derailment. After the land was scarred and scoured, one spilled toxin remained, seemingly impervious to decontamination efforts. However, using new technology developed by NASA, the town has eradicated the final threat and is now preparing to close the books on the disaster, 33 years later.

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

MAN CHARGED AFTER FLYING DRONE NEAR LOCKPORT CHEMICAL PLANT
Tags: us_NY, industrial, discovery, environmental, illegal, phosgene

LOCKPORT ‰?? A Lockport man was charged Friday with a trespassing violation after he allegedly flew a drone near the VanDeMark Chemical Co. plant in Lockport.

James A. Stivers, 62, of Mill Street, was confronted by police Monday on Mill Street, after a passing motorist reported seeing the remote-controlled aircraft airborne near the plant, which produces highly toxic phosgene gas.

According to a police report, Stivers admitted that he was flying the drone. However, he was not charged until Friday, and was given an appearance ticket for City Court.

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

SCIENCE FOR ALL: HOW TO MAKE FREE, OPEN SOURCE LABORATORY HARDWARE
Tags: laboratory, discovery, environmental

n the not-so-distant future you will read of a scientific breakthrough in an area your daughter was excited about in school. In the journal article you will click on the supplementary materials and be able to download all of the source code needed to replicate the instruments used to do the experiment. You will fire up your home 3-D printer to fabricate the equipment. Then, with a few more clicks, you will order any specialty supplies. By the weekend all the supplies will have arrived and now you and your daughter will have the fun of assembling the experiment and participating in state-of-the-art research for almost no money on a quiet Saturday afternoon.

This exciting future of science is closer than you might think. Scientists from all over the world are radically reducing the costs of experimental research while simultaneously improving it. They are able to pull off this small miracle by through the development and use of free open-source hardware (FOSH). FOSH provides the ‰??source code‰?? for hardware, including the recipe of components, schematics showing how they go together, and instructions for assembling them.

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

KWES NEWSWEST 9 / MIDLAND, ODESSA, BIG SPRING, TX: NEWSWEST9.COM |
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, injury, methane, natural_gas, petroleum

REEVES COUNTY, Texas -
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating a fire and subsequent explosion that shook a gas processing plant Thursday morning in Reeves County, approximately six miles north of Orla, OSHA officials said Friday.

Two people suffered minor injuries in the blast, local authorities told NewsWest 9, and more than 200 workers were evacuated.

The facility, Ramsey Natural Gas Processing Plant, is owned by Western Gas Partners, L.P. and operated by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.

The cause of the explosion has not been determined yet, Reeves County investigators said.

The plant was previously fined for unrelated safety citations, federal inspection records revealed.

A planned OSHA inspection in February uncovered five violations - three of which are listed as "serious violations" - that resulted in initial fines totaling more than $26,000.

The citations were later settled, informally, and accompanying fines were lowered, OSHA records confirmed.

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

THREE KILLED IN CHEMICAL FACTORY EXPLOSION NEAR AMATTUR
Tags: India, industrial, explosion, death, aluminum_dust

Summary: VIRUDHUNAGAR: Three workers were today charred to death and another seriously injured in a explosion in a chemical factory near Amattur in this district, police said. Workers in the factory were making aluminium powder from the aluminium lump by hitting it when it exploded. One of the workers identified as Malayandi died on the way to hospital while K Eswaran died at the private hospital in Madudrai. While one of the workers identified as K Sankareswaran died on the spot, three others were taken to Virudhunagar Government Hospital from where they were referred to a privatehospital in Madurai, police said. Amattur Police has registered a case.

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CONTRACTOR TO BEGIN EXCAVATION AT SPILL SITE MONDAY
Tags: us_WV, industrial, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) ‰?? A contractor is set to begin excavating soil contaminated by the January 2014 chemical leak that fouled public water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people in Charleston and the surrounding region.
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection says the contractor hired by Freedom Industries will start digging Monday. Up to 10,000 tons of soil will be removed.
The department says the work, which also includes soil sampling backfilling the site with contaminant-free dirt, is expected to take up to three months.
The spill into the Elk River occurred just a mile-and-a-half upstream of a water intake that serves about 300,000 people in nine counties. As a result, residents were ordered not to use the water for anything but toilet flushing for several days.

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

CHEMICAL SAFETY HEADING TOWARDS ANIMAL-FREE ASSESSMENTS WITH ‰?Â50M INVESTMENT PROGRAMME
Tags: Switzerland, industrial, discovery, environmental, other_chemical

Cosmetics Europe and the EU‰??s FP7 have each contributed half the funds towards a ‰?Â50 million European public‰??private partnership (PPP) ‰?? the largest of its kind ‰?? as it looks towards a new era of assessing chemical safety without using animals.
The SEURAT-1 project, which aims towards the replacement of In Vivo repeated dose systemic toxicity testing, had its final symposium today, showcasing the collective knowledge, and cross-disciplinary expertise of regulators and scientists from over 70 universities, research institutes and companies.

They aim has always been to define a common research strategy and make a decisive step to overcome fragmentation in the research community; meeting the specific needs of the cosmetics industry but also contributing to a global safety assessment solution for any chemical.

The area has always been a difficult one for the industry as even though the EU ban came into play on all cosmetic products sold in Europe over two years ago, ingredients used in cosmetics may still be tested on animals in the EU under REACH, the world‰??s largest chemical testing programme.

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

FREMONT: FIRE CREWS INVESTIGATE CHEMICAL SPILL NEAR SKYWAY COURT
Tags: us_CA, transportation, release, injury, acids, hydrochloric_acid, hydrofluoric_acid, waste

FREMONT -- Two police officers suffered minor injuries while evacuating an area downwind of a chemical spill Friday afternoon, a fire official said.

Fire crews responded to a report of a chemical reaction and spill at 2:11 p.m. near Skyway Court, off Osgood Road, said Fremont fire Division Chief Diane Hendry.

A hazardous waste disposal company was loading a drum into the truck when a chemical reaction occurred, causing it to smoke and spill over, Hendry said. The drum contained hydrochloric, hydrofluoric, nitric and phosphoric acids.

The spill is "fairly small and contained," she said.

Two Fremont police officers who were assisting with the evacuation downwind of the drum suffered minor inhalation injuries. The officers were treated on the scene and transported to an urgent care center to be evaluated.

Every building south of the Wal-Mart at 44009 Osgood Road was evacuated, Hendry said. The store remained open while fire and hazardous materials crews evaluated the scene.

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

FOOD AND DRINK FIRM FINED FOR CHEMICAL BURNS
Tags: United_Kingdom, industrial, follow-up, injury, corrosives

Food and drink manufacturer Princes has been fined å£13,000 after a worker suffered chemical burns to his arms and face, leaving him temporarily blinded.
Mark McLean, 41, was sprayed with a corrosive liquid when a hose split at the company‰??s soft drinks production plant in Bradford in July 2013.

Princes was sentenced at Bradford Magistrates‰?? Court on Tuesday (December 1) after pleading guilty to failing in its duty to keep employees safe.

Legal costs

Princes responds to sentence
‰??We very much regret the circumstances of the case, which has been settled.‰??

Spokesman, Princes
The company, based in Weaverthorpe Road, Bradford, was ordered to pay legal costs of å£1,323, in addition to the fine.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the firm failed to take measures that would have prevented McLean‰??s injury.

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