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From: DCHAS Membership Chair <membership**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (21 articles)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 07:32:36 -0500
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: 2E25AF2F-28F0-409C-836F-4A33F6E7231A**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Monday, November 25, 2019 at 7:32:18 AM
A service of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
Connecting Chemistry and Safety at http://www.dchas.org
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas
Table of Contents (21 articles)
PORT MELBOURNE GAS LEAK: 250 PEOPLE EVACUATED FROM LORIMER STREET
Tags: Australia, public, release, injury, unknown_chemical
FIRE BREAKS OUT AT ILLEGAL CHEMICAL WASTE DUMPSITE IN KUALA SELANGOR
Tags: Malaysia, industrial, explosion, response, unknown_chemical, illegal
N.J. DUO PLEADS GUILTY TO SETTING SLEEPING FRIEND ON FIRE IN ‰??PRANK THAT WENT TERRIBLY WRONG‰??
Tags: us_NJ, public, fire, injury, other_chemical
1 DEAD IN HAZMAT INCIDENT AT SAN JOSE FAIRMONT HOTEL
Tags: us_CA, public, release, death, suicide
LAST DEFENDANTS SENTENCED IN SANTA CLARA WASTE WATER EXPLOSION CASE
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, environmental, illegal, waste
FLORIDA HEALTH OFFICIALS DELAYED NOTIFYING RESIDENTS ABOUT TAINTED WATER, EMAILS SHOW
Tags: us_FL, public, discovery, environmental, other_chemical
POT SMOKE POTENTIAL REPRODUCTIVE TOXIN UNDER CALIFORNIA LAW
Tags: us_CA, public, discovery, environmental, toxics, marijuana
POTENTIAL SAFETY HAZARDS ASSOCIATED WITH PD-CATALYZED CROSS-COUPLING REACTIONS
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, metals
5 HOSPITALIZED AFTER HAZMAT INCIDENT IN HOPKINTON ‰?? CBS BOSTON
Tags: us_MA, industrial, release, injury, cleaners
FOUR PEOPLE TAKEN TO HOSPITAL AFTER CHLORINE GAS LEAK AT TOTTENHAM LEISURE CENTRE
Tags: United_Kingdom, public, release, injury, pool_chemicals
LAFD RESPONDS TO FLASH CHEMICAL FIRE AT UBIQD ON EASTGATE ROAD, NO INJURIES REPORTED ‰?? LOS ALAMOS REPORTER
Tags: us_NM, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
CIVILIAN, 3 POLICE OFFICERS HOSPITALIZED AFTER EXPOSURE TO TOXIC SUBSTANCE
Tags: Canada, public, release, injury, hydrogen_sulfide
BRISTOL COMMUNITY COLLEGE EVACUATED DUE TO CHEMICAL ODOR, 20 PEOPLE TREATED
Tags: us_MA, education, release, injury, unknown_chemical
EPA SCALES BACK RULES PUT IN PLACE AFTER DEADLY 2013 BLAST AT TEXAS FERTILIZER PLANT
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, death, ag_chems
ELON MUSK: VIDEO SHOWS SPACEX STARSHIP PROTOTYPE EXPLOSION IN TEXAS
Tags: Australia, industrial, explosion, response, liquid_nitrogen
SEVEN INJURED IN CHEMICAL FACTORY FIRE AT SHERAKOT
Tags: Pakistan, industrial, fire, injury, unknown_chemical
FIRE IN ANGULANA CHEMICAL FACTORY
Tags: Sri_Lanka, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
ACC ANNOUNCES INITIAL TSCA RISK-EVALUATION CONSORTIA
Tags: us_DC, industrial, discovery, environmental
CLEANING UP CHEMICAL KITCHENS
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, discovery, environmental
DOD CRITICIZED FOR APPROACH TO TRICHLOROETHYLENE EXPOSURE LIMIT FOR WORKERS
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, other_chemical, cleaners
CHINA PLANS ANOTHER CRACKDOWN ON CHEMICAL PLANT SAFETY
Tags: China, industrial, follow-up, death
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PORT MELBOURNE GAS LEAK: 250 PEOPLE EVACUATED FROM LORIMER STREET
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/gas-leak-port-melbourne-multiple-people-overcome-by-fumes/news-story/21bc311762dce08111b3df281285256b
Tags: Australia, public, release, injury, unknown_chemical
A gas leak has left multiple people sick and forced the evacuation of a building in Port Melbourne.
Emergency crews were called to the incident in Lorimer St about 1.20pm.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade said 250 people were evacuated while three people were found to be ‰??overcome by fumes‰??.
Paramedics treated five people at the scene and one person was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a stable condition.
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FIRE BREAKS OUT AT ILLEGAL CHEMICAL WASTE DUMPSITE IN KUALA SELANGOR
https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/501103
Tags: Malaysia, industrial, explosion, response, unknown_chemical, illegal
A fire broke out at an illegal dumpsite containing 270 drums of chemicals in Kampung Tambak Jaya, Kuala Selangor early today.
Several explosions also erupted at the dumpsite situated in a vacant lot, along Jalan Kapar Batu 16.
In a statement today, the Selangor Fire and Rescue Department's Operation Centre said no one was injured in the incident.
"We received an emergency call at 3.29am, and we sent out fire brigades from both fire and rescue stations in Kuala Selangor and Kapar together with 15 personnel," said the operation centre.
The team found that the fire and explosion involved 270 chemical drums stockpiled at the vacant lot covering an area of 50 feet by 50 feet.
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N.J. DUO PLEADS GUILTY TO SETTING SLEEPING FRIEND ON FIRE IN ‰??PRANK THAT WENT TERRIBLY WRONG‰??
https://www.nj.com/atlantic/2019/11/nj-duo-pleads-guilty-to-setting-sleeping-friend-on-fire-in-prank-that-went-terribly-wrong.html
Tags: us_NJ, public, fire, injury, other_chemical
Two Atlantic County men pleaded guilty Thursday to aggravated assault after authorities say they set their sleeping friend on fire in what police described was a ‰??prank that went terribly, terribly wrong."
Brandon Perez, 23, of Hammonton, and David Sult, 24, of Mays Landing, both pleaded guilty in exchange for five years in state prison, Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner said in a statement Friday.
Authorities said Perez and Sult were at Sult‰??s Mays Landing home the night of March 15 hanging out with a group of other men when the duo decided to play the dangerous prank on Raymond Mullen, who was asleep on the couch.
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1 DEAD IN HAZMAT INCIDENT AT SAN JOSE FAIRMONT HOTEL
https://dailystockdish.com/1-dead-in-hazmat-incident-at-san-jose-fairmont-hotel/
Tags: us_CA, public, release, death, suicide
One person is dead in what authorities are calling a hazardous materials incident Saturday at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California.
At about 10 a.m., firefighters were dispatched to the hotel on a report of an attempted suicide on the 19th floor using chemicals, San Jose Fire Department Capt. Mitch Matlow said. The crew found the woman dead in a hotel room on the 19th floor, the fire captain said.
Hazmat teams worked to decontaminate nine people, mostly workers, who were exposed to the chemical which some said had an odor similar to rotten eggs.
Their injuries were not thought to be life-threatening, he said. Three floors were evacuated.
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LAST DEFENDANTS SENTENCED IN SANTA CLARA WASTE WATER EXPLOSION CASE
https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/communities/santa-paula/2019/11/23/santa-clara-waste-water-company-explosion/4194659002/
Tags: us_CA, industrial, follow-up, environmental, illegal, waste
A judge on Friday stayed a 60-day Ventura County jail sentence for the two defendants in the Santa Clara Waste Water explosion case who cooperated with law enforcement.
Company managers Mark Avila, 53, and Brock Gustin Baker, 45, appeared in Ventura County Superior Court for their sentencing hearings.
In addition to the jail time, they were also ordered to serve three years of summary probation, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Dominic Kardum. The judge stayed the jail sentence as long as Avila and Baker obey all laws during probation, Kardum said. Under this informal probation, they do not need to check in with a probation officer, he said.
Friday‰??s court proceedings were the final resolutions in the criminal cases stemming from the Nov. 18, 2014, chemical blast at the Santa Clara Waste Water facility on Mission Rock Road near Santa Paula.
Sodium chlorite reacted with other chemicals after being sucked into a vacuum truck, causing an explosion. The sodium chlorite on the ground dried and ignited in the explosion and was inhaled by those at the scene. Numerous first responders and employees were injured.
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FLORIDA HEALTH OFFICIALS DELAYED NOTIFYING RESIDENTS ABOUT TAINTED WATER, EMAILS SHOW
https://stockdailydish.com/florida-health-officials-delayed-notifying-residents-about-tainted-water-emails-show/
Tags: us_FL, public, discovery, environmental, other_chemical
Linda Lawson thought little of drinking the water from the decades-old well in her backyard, less than half a mile down the road from the Florida State Fire College in Ocala. That changed when her daughter-in-law answered to state workers knocking on her door one afternoon. They came to test the water, a worker said.
She only began to worry when Mark Lander, the head of the Marion County Department of Health, came by at 8:30 one evening in early November with word that she shouldn‰??t drink from the well anymore. The unlit dirt path to her Central Florida home almost never received visitors, especially at night, and her husband Tim even pulled out his gun with concern that Lander might be an escaped inmate from a nearby prison.
Lander, who declined to comment for this story, delivered a letter that night informing Lawson‰??s family that chemical levels in their well water were higher than deemed safe. He gave them a couple of cases of water and told them to drink only bottled for the foreseeable future before he disappeared back into the night.
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POT SMOKE POTENTIAL REPRODUCTIVE TOXIN UNDER CALIFORNIA LAW
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/california-targets-pot-smoke-anew-under-state-chemical-safety-law
Tags: us_CA, public, discovery, environmental, toxics, marijuana
Recreational marijuana has led California officials to take a look at whether pot smoke and the active ingredient in cannabis should be classified as reproductive toxics under the state‰??s Proposition 65 law.
California has listed marijuana smoke as a carcinogen under Prop. 65 since 2009. But a separate listing now as a reproductive toxin would escalate requirements for product warnings and could fuel lawsuits against retailers and dispensaries in the state‰??s nascent recreational pot businesses.
‰??You just expanded the list of potential plaintiffs,‰?? said Nicole Howell Neubert, managing partner with Clark Neubert LLP in San Francisco, whose clients include companies in all parts of the cannabis supply chain.
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POTENTIAL SAFETY HAZARDS ASSOCIATED WITH PD-CATALYZED CROSS-COUPLING REACTIONS
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.oprd.9b00377
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, metals
The potential safety hazards associated with Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions have been underappreciated and inadequately discussed. These hazards have not been universally recognized in the past decades, perhaps overshadowed by the ubiquity of this class of chemistry and the desire to pursue new scientific advancements. The awareness of these hazards is further limited by the fact that synthetic chemists who develop these types of reactions on small scales are not typically trained in reactive chemistry hazard evaluation, and existing studies from industrial chemists and chemical engineers are often not published in journals that are commonly read by academic groups and synthetic chemists that typically work on small scales. This review summarizes observations of the exothermic behavior associated with the Pd-catalyzed ë±-arylation, Buchwald‰??Hartwig amination, Kumada‰??Corriu, Mizoroki‰??Heck, Negishi, Sonogashira, and Suzuki‰??Miyaura cross-coupling reactions. This !
exothermic behavior is consistently observed across each subset of cross-coupling reactions and appears to be relatively independent of the nucleophile, electrophile, base, solvent, and catalyst system employed. The magnitude of the exotherms poses potential safety hazards that could result in runaway scenarios in cases where the maximum temperature of a synthesis reaction (MTSR) exceeds the solvent boiling point and/or the onset temperature for reaction mixture decomposition. This contribution will serve as an educational resource to encourage researchers to conduct reaction safety evaluations and to develop control strategies accordingly to mitigate such potential safety risks prior to practicing Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling as well as other transition-metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions.
---------------------------------------------
5 HOSPITALIZED AFTER HAZMAT INCIDENT IN HOPKINTON ‰?? CBS BOSTON
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/11/22/hutchinson-aerospace-hopkinton-hazmat-chemical/
Tags: us_MA, industrial, release, injury, cleaners
HOPKINTON (CBS) ‰?? Five people were rushed to the hospital after a hazmat incident at Hutchinson Aerospace in Hopkinton Friday night. According to the Fire Marshal‰??s office, there was a spill involving trichloroethylene.
The incident happened at about 7 p.m. at the facility on South Street. Workers were using a parts cleaner when a drum of the chemical suddenly started to leak.
‰??About 30 gallons was contained to a machine that had a malfunction, we‰??re not really sure what happened with that machine at that point there,‰?? Hopkinton Fire Dep. Chief Bill Miller said. ‰??We evacuated the building and transported five people for minor injuries, respiratory injuries.‰??
The five workers reported minor throat irritation.
---------------------------------------------
FOUR PEOPLE TAKEN TO HOSPITAL AFTER CHLORINE GAS LEAK AT TOTTENHAM LEISURE CENTRE
https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/four-people-taken-hospital-after-17303646
Tags: United_Kingdom, public, release, injury, pool_chemicals
Four people have been rushed to hospital after a chemical leak at a North London swimming pool.
Emergency services were called to Tottenham Green Leisure Centre a little before 10am today (November 22) to reports of noxious gas in the main pool area.
The Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service were in attendance.
The leisure centre was evacuated but already people had been hurt.
Three members of the public and one member of staff were hit by the toxic cloud and were treated by paramedics before being taken to hospital.
---------------------------------------------
LAFD RESPONDS TO FLASH CHEMICAL FIRE AT UBIQD ON EASTGATE ROAD, NO INJURIES REPORTED ‰?? LOS ALAMOS REPORTER
https://losalamosreporter.com/2019/11/22/lafd-responds-to-flash-chemical-fire-at-ubiqd-on-eastgate-road-no-injuries-reported/
Tags: us_NM, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
Multiple Los Alamos Fire Department units responded to a flash chemical fire Friday afternoon at UbiQD on Eastgate Drive.
The Los Alamos Fire Department‰??s Hazmat 1 truck and several other LAFD vehicles were deployed to the UbiQD building at 134 Eastgate Drive Friday afternoon. Firefighters reported that there was yellow smoke billowing from the building when they arrived. Hazmat teams were deployed. There were not injuries reported. Reports at the scene indicated that there were several chemicals under a hood where the fire broke out.
---------------------------------------------
CIVILIAN, 3 POLICE OFFICERS HOSPITALIZED AFTER EXPOSURE TO TOXIC SUBSTANCE
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/toxic-substance-3-officers-1-civilian-in-hospital-1.5369016
Tags: Canada, public, release, injury, hydrogen_sulfide
Four people, including three police officers, were hospitalized after being exposed to a toxic substance in a vehicle parked outside a Dartmouth, N.S., grocery store.
Halifax Regional Police say they got a call at 4:46 p.m. Thursday about a woman suffering from a medical emergency in the 500 block of Portland Street, behind the Sobeys store.
Officers found the woman inside the vehicle, and as they tried to help her, they were exposed to a chemical substance.
All four were taken to hospital. Police said in a release around 11 p.m. that the three officers had been released, while the woman was being treated for injuries described as non-life threatening.
Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency district Chief Brad Connors said two materials in the car mixed together to create hydrogen sulfide, a gas that is hazardous to anyone who breathes it in.
In small concentrations, the gas smells like rotten eggs, but is odourless in higher concentrations because people lose their ability to smell the gas.
---------------------------------------------
BRISTOL COMMUNITY COLLEGE EVACUATED DUE TO CHEMICAL ODOR, 20 PEOPLE TREATED
https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Massachusetts-College-Campus-Evacuated-due-to-Chemical-Odor-565285922.html
Tags: us_MA, education, release, injury, unknown_chemical
A Massachusetts community college campus was evacuated Thursday and 20 people received medical attention after having trouble breathing.
Bristol Community College's campus in New Bedford was evacuated about 10 a.m., the school said in a statement, after an unknown odor was detected.
First responders initially received a call reporting the smell of natural gas, but once crews arrived at the scene it became apparent it wasn't natural gas, but some sort of chemical gas, Deputy Fire Chief Scott Kruger told The Standard-Times.
He said that about 10 people taken to the hospital complained of trouble breathing and that others were treated at the scene.
---------------------------------------------
EPA SCALES BACK RULES PUT IN PLACE AFTER DEADLY 2013 BLAST AT TEXAS FERTILIZER PLANT
https://www.khou.com/article/news/nation-world/epa-scales-back-rules-put-in-place-after-deadly-2013-blast-at-texas-fertilizer-plant/285-884cbb6f-2994-4442-9c94-10a18326dd67
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, death, ag_chems
AUSTIN, Texas ‰?? The Trump administration is scaling back chemical plant safety measures that were put in place after a Texas fertilizer plant explosion in 2013 that killed 15 people.
The changes announced Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency include ending a requirement that plants provide members of the public information about chemical risks upon request.
The Obama era rules followed a fire at the West Fertilizer Co. plant that caused ammonium nitrate to ignite, triggering a massive explosion that ripped open a large crater. Ten firefighters were among those killed.
EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler says the changes do away with ‰??unnecessary administrative burdens.‰?? Chemical manufacturers had pushed for the changes.
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ELON MUSK: VIDEO SHOWS SPACEX STARSHIP PROTOTYPE EXPLOSION IN TEXAS
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/spacex-prototype-explodes-sending-liquid-nitrogen-flying/news-story/035651969ad0e6530cf07fdc1b032f96
Tags: Australia, industrial, explosion, response, liquid_nitrogen
This is the dramatic moment Elon Musk‰??s Starship prototype covered a launch complex in huge plumes of frosty liquid nitrogen during a test failure.
The icy chemical was being used as part of a propellant test, and is at least -197C ‰?? and often much colder.
Dramatic footage captured by the NasaSpaceflight blog shows the rocket blowing open during a test on Wednesday.
A cloud of cryogenic fluid can be seen erupting from the vehicle‰??s upper bulkhead, The Sun reports.
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SEVEN INJURED IN CHEMICAL FACTORY FIRE AT SHERAKOT
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/572419-seven-injured-in-chemical-factory-fire-at-sherakot
Tags: Pakistan, industrial, fire, injury, unknown_chemical
LAHORE:At least seven persons received burns when a fire erupted at a chemical factory near Bao Sammay Ghati in the Sherakot police limits on Thursday.
The injured were shifted to Mayo Hospital. The Rescue 1122 fire service controlled the fire after hectic efforts for over two hours. The victims with minor injuries have been identified as Zulifqar, 42, s/o Aziz, Tassawar, 26, son of Sarwar, Ahmed, 22, son of Saif, Muzammil, 18, son of Iqbal, Qasim, 28, son of Hanif, Nadeem, 24, son of Salamat and Tayyab, 19, son of Nazir.
The fire had erupted in a chemical drum which engulfed the entire premises. help desks at Kartarpur Corridor: Punjab police have established two help desks at Kartarpur Corridor for the protection and facility of Sikh pilgrims and tourists.
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FIRE IN ANGULANA CHEMICAL FACTORY
https://www.newsfirst.lk/2019/11/22/fire-in-angulana-chemical-factory/
Tags: Sri_Lanka, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
COLOMBO (News 1st):- A fire erupted in a chemical factory located in Angulana, Katubedda at around 3:00 this morning (November 22).
The Fire Department said that 12 service trucks were deployed to douse the fire. The police stated that the fire had caused massive damage to the three-storey building.
The cause of the fire has not yet been identified.
---------------------------------------------
ACC ANNOUNCES INITIAL TSCA RISK-EVALUATION CONSORTIA
https://www.chemengonline.com/acc-announces-initial-tsca-risk-evaluation-consortia/
Tags: us_DC, industrial, discovery, environmental
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) today announced the formation of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Risk Evaluation Consortia to inform the Environmental Protection Agency‰??s (EPA) risk evaluation of five chemicals: 1,3-butadiene, 1,4-dichlorobenzene (p-DCB), formaldehyde, phthalic anhydride, and propylene dichloride. ACC‰??s Center for Chemical Safety will serve as the scientific and technical hub for these consortia.
‰??It is essential for companies across the value chain to understand and engage in the TSCA process because it is critical to their businesses. Forming a consortium is a great way to do that,‰?? said Steve Risotto from ACC‰??s Center for Chemical Safety. ‰??ACC is a natural choice for these companies given our subject matter expertise, the tools and resources we offer, and the partnerships we have developed over many years as the voice of the chemical industry,‰?? he continued.
In 2016, a bipartisan majority of Congress amended TSCA to reform the regulation of chemicals in the United States. TSCA gives EPA authority to regulate chemicals in commerce and manage any identified unreasonable risks to human health and the environment. Prioritization of chemicals for risk evaluation is a new feature of the updated law. Any final high-priority designation does not represent a finding of risk by EPA. Rather, that is the role of a TSCA risk evaluation.
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CLEANING UP CHEMICAL KITCHENS
https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/cleaning-up-chemical-kitchens/4010722.article
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, discovery, environmental
In a busy plant, ensuring small changes don‰??t produce unforeseen toxic impurities is key
I often compare a working chemical plant to a particularly busy restaurant. The chemists plan the dishes and develop the recipes, and the operators are out in the plant, cooking up the product. The customers are hungrily waiting for their compounds to be shipped to them, asking the waiters (the salespeople) how their orders are coming, and whether or not their products have been tested in the quality control laboratory.
But there are still other details to consider. Where can we get the ingredients? What quality will those ingredients be? And the grimiest detail of all ‰?? at the end of a busy shift, someone has to clean out the pots and pans.
That‰??s one of those not very fun tasks that process chemists eventually find themselves thinking about ‰?? what‰??s the best way to clean a reactor easily, when there might be gummed-up residues on the sides, or some leftover product in the pipework? While there might occasionally be times where an operator needs to get suited up and carefully lowered into the reactor to gently scrape off compound that is stuck on the ceramic walls, it‰??s generally safer and easier to use solvents.
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DOD CRITICIZED FOR APPROACH TO TRICHLOROETHYLENE EXPOSURE LIMIT FOR WORKERS
https://cen.acs.org/policy/chemical-regulation/DOD-criticized-approach-trichloroethylene-exposure/97/i46
Tags: industrial, discovery, environmental, other_chemical, cleaners
he US Department of Defense should overhaul its process for establishing a workplace exposure limit for the chlorinated solvent trichloroethylene (TCE), a Nov. 15 report by a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee says. The report questions why the DOD did not follow best practices in its hazard assessment and review of published studies on the health effects of TCE.
Deviating from best practices ‰??puts the agency in a position of having to develop, document, and defend a different approach, which is particularly difficult when applied to a chemical with a large and controversial database, such as TCE,‰?? the report states.
TCE is a human carcinogen and has adverse effects on the liver, kidneys, brain, and immune system, as well as on reproduction. The DOD is concerned about people inhaling TCE while working in facilities near contaminated DOD sites.
The US military once widely used TCE as a metal degreaser and in maintenance of tanks and aircraft. The chemical now contaminates the soil and groundwater at numerous DOD sites and can migrate into the air of buildings near such sites.
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CHINA PLANS ANOTHER CRACKDOWN ON CHEMICAL PLANT SAFETY
https://cen.acs.org/safety/industrial-safety/China-plans-another-crackdown-chemical/97/i46
Tags: China, industrial, follow-up, death
Eight months after a chemical plant explosion at an industrial park in Jiangsu Province, China, killed 78 and hospitalized over 600, China is penalizing some senior officials and launching a new round of national safety inspections. Yet experts worry that without more comprehensive efforts, the country‰??s fast-expanding chemical industry may still be vulnerable to deadly accidents.
On Nov. 15, at a meeting of the State Council (China‰??s cabinet), two vice governors of Jiangsu Province received disciplinary warnings. Earlier, authorities had arrested two dozen corporate executives, local officials, and safety assessment agents. They were found to be responsible for inadequate safety management at the company, Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical, where the March 21 blast occurred.
At the meeting, officials also vowed to enhance chemical safety management and increase surveillance to prevent major accidents. Except for a round of nationwide safety inspections, however, they released no new concrete measures.
The Jiangsu blast and a 2018 explosion at a ChemChina facility that killed 23 were major setbacks in China‰??s effort to improve chemical safety. Officials jump-started the initiative after a massive explosion at a hazardous goods warehouse in Tianjin in 2015 killed more than 170 people. One significant step was a plan to forcibly relocate certain chemical factories to well-monitored industrial parks.
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