From: DCHAS Secretary <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines from Google (12 articles)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2017 07:40:22 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: B66496F9-B74B-4F2A-87F4-1D72DFBC51B5**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org


Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 7:40:11 AM

A membership benefit 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 (12 articles)

FIRE AT HOT METAL LABORATORY IN KEIGHLEY
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, fire, response, metals

WORKER INJURED AS AMMONIA GAS LEAKS AT PENAMPANG FACTORY
Tags: Malaysia, industrial, release, injury, ammonia

GOV. JERRY BROWN SIGNS 3 BILLS AIMED AT TORRANCE REFINERY SAFETY PRECAUTIONS ‰?? DAILY BREEZE
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, environmental

ARKEMA RESPONDS TO LAWSUIT FOLLOWING CROSBY PLANT EXPLOSIONS
Tags: us_TX, public, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical

DEQ SENDS NOTICE OF VIOLATION OVER TINKER CREEK CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_VA, public, follow-up, environmental, pesticides

TOXIC CHEMICAL PFAS FOUND AT KIRRA BEACH ON GOLD COAST
Tags: Australia, public, discovery, environmental, toxics

EXPOSURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICALS IS AN IMPORTANT RISK FACTOR FOR BREAST CANCER
Tags: public, discovery, environmental

DOWDUPONT, CHEMOURS NAMED IN GENX LAWSUIT
Tags: us_NC, public, follow-up, environmental, toxics

FIRE DEPARTMENT RESPONDS TO AMMONIA SPILL IN SOUTH NASHVILLE
Tags: us_TN, industrial, release, injury, ammonia

MAN SERIOUSLY INJURED, HOMES EVACUATED AFTER EXPLOSION IN AZUSA
Tags: us_CA, public, explosion, injury, bomb, flammables

ALL HANDS ON DECK AFTER IDZ BLAST
Tags: South_Africa, industrial, follow-up, injury, unknown_chemical

CHEMICAL USED TO KILL MOSQUITOES SPLITS COMMUNITIES
Tags: us_FL, public, discovery, environmental, other_chemical


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FIRE AT HOT METAL LABORATORY IN KEIGHLEY
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, fire, response, metals

FOUR fire crews have turned out to a fire at a Keighley laboratory where 15,000 litres of oil was being stored.

The alarm was raised at 9.28pm yesterday at Keighley Laboratories, Croft House Works, South Street.

Crews from the town, Bingley, Silsden and Illingworth used foam to put out the fire on top of an oil bath.

Only a small area of the factory was involved said a spokesman from Keighley Fire Station.

He said: "We used the foam to make a blanket to put the fire out. When we got the call we thought the whole place was going to be on fire becaue of the amount of oil in the building but it was only a very small area involved, just on the surface of the oil bath. It was easy to extinguish."

It happened when hot metal from a furnace was dropped into the oil bath to heat the metal down.

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

WORKER INJURED AS AMMONIA GAS LEAKS AT PENAMPANG FACTORY
Tags: Malaysia, industrial, release, injury, ammonia

PENAMPANG: A worker was injured in a gas leak incident at an ice-cream factory at KR Industrial Park, Jalan Bundusan, here today.

In the 3.40pm incident, the worker, while discharging the excess ammonia gas, was said to have slipped and fell.

With the valve lever open, the gas blew right to his face, causing the injury.

Fellow workers alerted the factory manager who then rushed the victim to the nearest hospital.

A worker at a nearby factory, known only as Desmond, said firefighters ordered them to stay about 100m from the factory for safety reason.

A state Fire and Rescue Department spokesman said a hazardous material (Hazmat) team was deployed to the factory to control the leak.

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GOV. JERRY BROWN SIGNS 3 BILLS AIMED AT TORRANCE REFINERY SAFETY PRECAUTIONS ‰?? DAILY BREEZE
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, environmental

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a trio of bills by a South Bay assemblyman aimed at improving refinery safety in the wake of a February 2015 explosion at the Torrance refinery.

The bills, authored by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, would require refineries:

To pay for the development, installation, operation and maintenance of effective community alert systems and local emergency responders to operate it.
To pay for the development, installation, operation and maintenance of air quality monitors at fence lines that would be operated by the local air quality management district and the data made publicly available.
To work with federal, state and local agencies to improve safety through ‰??enhanced oversight of refineries and to strengthen emergency preparedness.‰??
‰??I am pleased to deliver on my promise to make the Torrance refinery and all California refineries safer,‰?? Muratsuchi said in a press release. ‰??When the Torrance refinery exploded in February 2015, my family lived just a few miles away, so this issue is personal for me.‰??

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ARKEMA RESPONDS TO LAWSUIT FOLLOWING CROSBY PLANT EXPLOSIONS
Tags: us_TX, public, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical

CROSBY, Texas - A little more than a month after first responders filed a lawsuit against Arkema for explosions at its Crosby plant, the chemical production company responded with answers to the suit in Harris County District Court.

Arkema‰??s overarching response states that the lawsuit is based on ‰??incomplete information, false assumptions and intentional misrepresentations.‰??

In the filing, Arkema states that no one could have predicted ‰??in enough time to act on that prediction‰?? the unprecedented flooding. As far as the amount of rainfall, nearly 9 trillion gallons of water Harris County, Arkema said experts ‰??never fathomed‰?? the amount of rain Harvey would dump on Houston.

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DEQ SENDS NOTICE OF VIOLATION OVER TINKER CREEK CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_VA, public, follow-up, environmental, pesticides

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ7) - The Department of Environmental Quality is requesting action from leaders of a Botetourt County business, following a chemical spill that happened over the summer.

In late July, Hazmat officials were on scene at Tinker Creek in Roanoke after officials said chemicals had spilled into the creek.

Officials with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management stated that the source of the spill was linked back to the Crop Production Services at 218 Simmons Dr. in Cloverdale, Va.

That chemical was confirmed to be a herbicide called Termix.

At the time, dead fish were found floating to the surface of the water. Virginia Department of Environmental Quality officials were also on scene and temporarily advised people to stay out of the water.

An August 11 statement issued from the DEQ stated that the temporary ban on recreational use of the creek had been lifted and that the latest water testing results showed no evidence of the spilled chemical, Termix 5301.

According to Bill Hayden with DEQ's public affair office, DEQ does not have any additional water quality information on Tinker Creek at the time.

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

TOXIC CHEMICAL PFAS FOUND AT KIRRA BEACH ON GOLD COAST
Tags: Australia, public, discovery, environmental, toxics

WARNING signs have been placed at Kirra Beach after water from Coolangatta Creek was found to be contaminated with toxic chemicals.

People have been advised not to swim or fish in the outlet after Gold Coast City Council revealed it had found traces of Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFAS), a toxic chemical which was found at the Gold Coast Airport last year.

PFAS has caused major health issues in the town of Oakey, west of Toowoomba.

The chemical has been found at airports across the country after it was used for decades in firefighting foam used in training exercises.

The council revealed recent tests had found levels of PFAS at Kirra Beach.

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EXPOSURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICALS IS AN IMPORTANT RISK FACTOR FOR BREAST CANCER
Tags: public, discovery, environmental

Exposure to environmental chemicals, especially early in life, is an important contributing factor in the development of breast cancer, according to the most comprehensive review of human studies to date. The findings could help inform prevention strategies aimed at reducing the incidence of the disease, as rates continue to increase worldwide.
In 2007, researchers from Silent Spring Institute published in the journal Cancer a landmark state-of-the-science review on the link between environmental chemicals and breast cancer. The review identified 216 chemicals that cause mammary tumors in animals and provided a roadmap for studying these chemicals in humans. "That was a real wakeup call," says Dr. Julia Brody, Silent Spring's executive director and senior scientist. "Now, ten years later, we see the evidence is even stronger."
Since the first review, hundreds of studies have been published on environmental chemicals and breast cancer. To capture and synthesize the human evidence, Brody and her team conducted a systematic search of the literature and identified 158 epidemiology studies published between 2006 and 2016. The researchers critically reviewed each study in light of emerging science on the biology underlying breast cancer, such as the influence of genes and hormones on the development of the disease.

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DOWDUPONT, CHEMOURS NAMED IN GENX LAWSUIT
Tags: us_NC, public, follow-up, environmental, toxics

Lawyers have filed a class-action lawsuit charging Chemours and its former parent DowDuPont with contaminating drinking water in Wilmington, N.C., with the fluoropolymer processing aid GenX. The suit follows a furor in the spring over the chemical‰??s release from a Chemours plant.
Filed in Federal District Court in Wilmington on behalf of city resident Brent Nix, the suit seeks health monitoring for illnesses that may be caused by GenX and similar contaminants released into the Cape Fear River from Chemours‰??s plant 160 km upriver in Fayetteville, N.C. In addition, it seeks compensation for lost property value on behalf of Nix and as many as 100,000 additional plaintiffs should the court certify the case as a class-action suit.
According to the suit, ‰??defendants have negligently and otherwise acted to cause toxic chemicals to be released from the Fayetteville Works Site, which then traveled to and contaminated and damaged the properties and household water supplies of plaintiff and class members, and exposed them to toxic chemicals.‰??

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

FIRE DEPARTMENT RESPONDS TO AMMONIA SPILL IN SOUTH NASHVILLE
Tags: us_TN, industrial, release, injury, ammonia

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) ‰?? Fire officials responded to an ammonia spill at a South Nashville manufacturing plant Monday night.

The call went out at 8:45 p.m. on Hackworth Street, off Polk Avenue near Nolensville Pike.

There was a heavy presence from the Nashville Fire Department and HAZMAT crews, who were seen suiting up in protective gear.

A refrigerator tank containing 10,000 gallons of ammonia was the source of the leak.

A firefighter was taken to an area hospital for blood pressure issues and is expected to be OK.

The ammonia levels at the plant have returned to normal and repairs are reportedly underway.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, ammonia is corrosive to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract. Rapid evaporation of the liquid may cause frostbite.

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

MAN SERIOUSLY INJURED, HOMES EVACUATED AFTER EXPLOSION IN AZUSA
Tags: us_CA, public, explosion, injury, bomb, flammables

A 37-year-old man was seriously injured Monday when chemicals exploded in the rear yard of his Azusa home, police reported. A bomb squad and fire hazmat team responded to the scene.

Two elementary schools were briefly on lock down, one of which was evacuated.

The Azusa Police Department reported the explosion in the area of the 1000 block of North Sunset Avenue just after noon via Twitter.

The man suffered burn injuries to his upper body and face, police said. No structures were damaged.

Police also aided in the evacuation of Longfellow Elementary School.

"Azusa PD detectives, along with the aforementioned personnel are conducting a detailed investigation into the cause of the explosion". All students from Longfellow were taken to Mountain View Elementary School, according to police, who urged parents not to attempt to pick up children during the evacuation process. Students were released at the district's discretion. Officials found flammable and/or explosive chemicals on the property and the entire block was evacuated as a precaution.

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

ALL HANDS ON DECK AFTER IDZ BLAST
Tags: South_Africa, industrial, follow-up, injury, unknown_chemical

The Feltex automotive factory is importing car parts from Germany so that production of the luxury Mercedes-Benz C Class sedans can resume after an explosion at a plant last Tuesday.

An area at the Telfex Automative factory where 11 workers were injured in a blast last night.
....
Speaking to the Dispatch on Friday, Feltex plant manager Graham Young said: ‰??We have ordered from a leading German supplier to make sure that production at MBSA continues while we focus on getting the factory up and running again.‰??

Breaking the company‰??s silence about the explosion, Young also revealed that the blast, which injured 11 workers, started from the chemical storage room.

This is contrary to allegations made by a worker at the firm that the explosion started after machinery-welding went wrong. ‰??The information was wrong, there was no welding that took place at our factory and there was no compressor inside the factory. The explosion started in our chemical room but we are not sure what caused it yet,‰?? said Young.

The explosion sent tremors through surrounding areas in East London. ‰??I can tell you that we will leave nothing unturned to get to the root cause of the blast,‰?? Young said.

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CHEMICAL USED TO KILL MOSQUITOES SPLITS COMMUNITIES
Tags: us_FL, public, discovery, environmental, other_chemical

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - It's hard to find anyone against killing the mosquitoes that seem to be everywhere since Hurricane Irma, but it's the way to get rid of them that has grounded planes at the last minute and divided local communities.

Aerial spraying is a quicker way to kill mosquitoes versus using a fogger on the ground, but the chemical dropped from planes -- haled -- has some residents concerned about their health and safety.

"Quadruple the number of what we had seen in previous years during this time," said Dr. Brad Burbaugh with Clay County's Mosquito Control about the uptick in the mosquito population.

To put it in perspective, Clay County averages around 27 mosquitoes per trap. After Irma hit on Sept. 11, there were 206. That's almost 10 times the yearly average -- and still four times as high as peak mosquito season.

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