A Boston College graduate student reportedly suffered minor injuries Saturday morning when whatever she was working on blew up. Key points culled from news reports over the weekend, plus ChemBark:

Royal Dutch Shell Plc had a release of an unknown amount of benzene after an equipment failure on a distilling unit at its Deer Park refinery and chemical plant in Texas, according to a company filing.

Shell’s filing also showed the equipment was repaired.

The Deer Park refinery, a venture between The Hague-based Shell and Mexico’s state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, can process 340,000 barrels of oil a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The complex is 21 miles (34 kilometers) southeast of Houston on the Houston Ship Channel.

U.S. refineries must notify the National Response Center if they release hazardous substances in excess of reportable quantities, according to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, commonly known as Superfund.

A chemical company is suing the City of Kelowna and its fire department for negligence after toxic chemicals were washed into a local creek following a warehouse fire last summer.

Pesticides, fertilizers and glycol were washed into a storm drain while firefighters were dousing the flames at the Univar Canada depot, one of several businesses destroyed by a fire on Kirschner Road in July.

Univar Canada, Kelowna
The runoff turned the water in nearby Mill Creek bright green and killed dozens of small fish before working its way into Okanagan Lake.

In recently filed court documents, Univar Canada — a wholesale agricultural fertilizer and pesticide supplier — alleges fire crews didn't do enough to keep the chemicals from contaminating nearby soil and water, and ignored warnings from the company's staff about the risks.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) issued notices to 10 chemical units in Naroda GIDC in the last two days. The health department of AMC's north zone initiated action against the chemical units after Chinmay Chemicals caught fire on Tuesday evening.

The civic body has sealed the chemical unit that was destroyed in the fire. "The chemical unit did not have a health licence and it had also failed to adhere to fire safety norms," said AMC official.
The department served notices to Union Acid, Atul Intermediate, Pranav Chemical, Glochem Ltd and Sanjay Industries on Thursday, while Rosewell Industries, Abhinav Industries, Kinjal Chemicals, Chunikaka Industries and Arun Dyestuff Industries were issued notices on Wednesday.

An explosives factory prosecuted over a fatal blast is appealing against a magistrate's findings in the Industrial Court.

The factory at Gladstone in the mid-north exploded in 2006, killing three workers and injuring two.

The Industrial Court found the explosion was triggered by a cook-off effect inside a poorly-maintained chemical-mixing machine.

The company Quin Investments and its chief operating officer Nick Kuzub were convicted of breaching workplace safety laws and fined $95,000 each.

Lawyer Grant Germain has argued on appeal that the magistrate's findings were implausible and Mr Kuzub should have his conviction quashed.

A chemical company has been sentenced after a worker suffered toxic burns to his arms and chest at an Ellesmere Port factory.

The employee at Abacus Chemical Ltd was mixing two chemicals together on 7 May 2009 when they exploded, causing him to be drenched in a hot, toxic chemical solution.

The company was prosecuted in a joint case brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Environment Agency following the incident at its plant on Oil Sites Road in Ellesmere Port.

Chester Magistrates' Court, sitting in Knutsford, heard that the company had mixed 22 kilograms of sodium cyanide pellets with hydrogen peroxide to make them less toxic. By taking this action, Abacus avoided having to pay a licensed hazardous waste company to dispose of the pellets at a cost of less than £300.

Federal regulators missed at least two chances before the deadly explosion in San Bruno to force Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and other utilities to collect more accurate information on their gas pipes and use better inspection techniques, a Chronicle investigation has found.

A permissive regulatory system allowed PG&E to use inaccurate information to establish the San Bruno pipeline's operating pressure and to rely on an inspection technique inappropriate for finding key weaknesses in the pipe, records show.

A Nickerson Road electronics firm where 19 people suffered respiratory trouble following a chemical explosion Monday reopened for business yesterday. Nineteen employees from Spectrum Microwave were treated at area hospitals yesterday and released, a fire official said.

Workers suffered minor respiratory ailments when a plastic drum of waste nitric acid apparently ruptured under pressure around 7 a.m., the Fire Department said. The rupture sprayed about a gallon of the chemical around the laboratory, said Ed Coletta, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The spill was contained to the room where it happened, Coletta said.

Dangerous concentrations of lead have been found in fields close to the the Moerdijk chemicals packaging company which went up in flames last week.

Chemistry professor Jacob de Boer told television programme Nieuwsuur the amount of lead – up to a thousand times the permited level - is 'extremely worrying'.

Officials have so far maintained there is no danger to human health from soot released in the blaze.

Liable

Nevertheless, on Tuesday Breda mayor Peter van der Velden said the plant may have broken its licencing conditions and could be liable.

Van der Velden was speaking on behalf of the public prosecution department and refused to answer any further questions, news agency ANP said.

A department spokesman told ANP officials had carried out searches of the Chemie-Pack offices, and that revealed possible infringements of the licence.

But he too refused to go into further details.

A spokesman for the company also refused to elaborate on the allegations

Dioxin

Meanwhile, it also emerged on Tuesday that cancer-causing dioxins had been found in the soot which had fallen in a 10-mile radius of the blaze. But the concentrations 'were not unusual' in the winter, Dordrecht mayor Arno Brok was quoted as saying by Nos tv.

A high concentration of dioxin found in grass growing 3 km from the fire was being looked into, he said.

Nevertheless, previous advice not to eat winter vegetables and to keep children and livestock indoors remains in force, Brok said.

Chemie-Pack, the Dutch chemical company which burned down last week, apparently repeatedly flaunted environmental and fire safety regulations. The current affairs programme EenVandaag, which has seen inspection reports dating back to 2002, says that despite this it continued to be granted permits.

As early as October 2002 the Public Prosecutor's Office threatened Chemie-Pack with sanctions for contravening fire safety regulations. The company's automatic sprinkler system was not operating properly and the roof was not sufficiently fire-resistant. Between 2007 and 2009 inspectors reported that chemicals were not stored correctly.

Fierce chemical fires broke out at Chemie-Pack's plant in Moerdijk, south of Rotterdam, on Thursday last week. It took firefighters over 30 hours to get the blaze under control. 

Professor of Environmental Science Lucas Reijnders, who studied the documents for the TV programme, says the company should have been shut down.

GRANITEVILLE --- It was standing room only at the annual community memorial service remembering the train wreck and chemical explosion that took nine Graniteville lives in 2005.



Early on the morning of Jan. 6, 2005, a 42-car Norfolk Southern train crashed into two locomotives and two rail cars. The freight train was carrying more than 250 tons of toxic chlorine gas which was released in the crash.

Nine people died as a result of the toxic fumes, more than 250 people were sent to hospitals and about 5,400 people were evacuated.

Officials said the accident was caused by a displaced manual switch on the train tracks, which should have been put in the proper place by Norfolk Southern employees.

Chemical maker Chemtura Corp. reached a settlement in bankruptcy court this week over claims connected to a fire at its Bio-Lab Inc. plant that caused the mass evacuation of parts of Conyers, Ga., and closed an interstate highway in May 2004.

Under the deal, Chemtura agreed to place $7 million in a settlement fund that will make payments to affected residents, property owners and businesses. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, where Chemtura sought Chapter 11 protection in 2009, must sign off on the deal.

Dry chlorine pellets fueled the massive fire at the swimming pool chemicals plant, according to a newspaper account of the incident.

The fire “created a noxious cloud of smoke that stretched over east Georgia” and shut down I-20 for hours, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported at the time.

An attorney for the owners of the "bomb house" property near Escondido has demanded at least $500,000 for his clients' loss and distress, according to a claim filed with San Diego County.
In a dramatic operation that captured national attention, authorities burned the single-story residence to the ground on Dec. 9, 2010, to destroy what they said was its huge and highly unstable stockpile of explosives.
They said fire was the only safe way to neutralize the homemade bomb materials found throughout the cluttered house just west of Interstate 15 and north of El Norte Parkway. Authorities said the explosives included the same destructive compounds as those used in recent terrorist plots.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The state of Minnesota sued 3M Co. on Thursday, alleging its disposal of chemicals once used to make Scotchgard fabric protector and other products damaged the state's natural resources, including more than 100 miles of the Mississippi River.

The lawsuit, filed in Hennepin County, demands 3M pay for the damage, which the state says includes the loss of fish and damage to groundwater, surface water and sediment. The lawsuit doesn't specify the cost of the damage.

"3M made a mess, they contaminated the waters," Attorney General Lori Swanson said. "We want them to step up and make it right."

3M spokesman Bill Nelson said Thursday that 3M has stepped up, pledging to pay the state up to $8 million to cover some direct costs of cleanup and $5 million to fund environmental research into the chemicals. 3M also is working on remediation at its disposal sites.

The lawsuit focuses on 3M's disposal of perfluorochemicals, or PFCs, and their compounds. The Maplewood-based 3M began producing PFCs in the 1940s, and legally disposed of them in landfills until the early 1970s — when the company built a corporate incinerator to handle the waste.

State fire investigators have concluded that a fatal explosion at a condominium project last summer was not the result of the delivery of odorless propane gas from a Westfield, Mass., distributor, as initially thought.

The report from Fire Marshal Stephen Coan's office into the July explosion in Norfolk instead pointed to another possible cause — a phenomenon known as "odorant fade."

That can occur when the chemical that gives propane its distinctive "rotten eggs" smell fades over time. Odorant fade can occur in new tanks or tanks that have run dry and are only partially filled.

The 1,000-gallon tank at the condominium construction site had only 200 gallons of propane in it at the time of the explosion, which killed an electrician and injured three others workers and two firefighters. Workers said they did not smell gas before the blast.

Steven “Peanut” Koeser was killed while fighting a dumpster fire in Calumet County on December 29, 2009. Officials say water and foam the department was using to put out the fire caused a chemical reaction with products in the dumpster. There was an explosion and Koeser was tossed approximately 60 feet.

"It still doesn’t seem real, it feels like it just happened yesterday," said Kelly Wallesh, the mother of Koeser's 5-year-old daughter Lexus.

PETALING JAYA: The fire that occurred at the aromatic plant belonging to Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd is not expected to have any major impact on its business; however, any prolonged closure could affect its revenue.

According to OSK Research analyst Jason Yap, the plant is used to produce paraxylene and benzene, which make up about 20% of forecast revenue for financial year ending March 31, 2011 (FY11).

The warehouse of Goodknight Mosquito Coil and Spray at the capital's Khilkhet had no fire-extinguishers and the workers there were not trained to do their jobs properly.

Statements of workers and warehouse authorities vary sharply. And mystery shrouds what actually the workers were doing in the warehouse when it went up in flames. It is still to be ascertained what caused the fire.

The blaze at the warehouse on Friday night killed six workers, five on the spot, and left five others critically injured. The deceased workers are Almas, Tofazzal, Aminul, Yusuf, Russel and Anwar. Of them, Russel, Yusuf, Tofazzal and Aminur were of the same family.

The injured were having treatment at the Burn and Plastic Surgery unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Six of them were brought in early yesterday, but Anwar, 26, succumbed to his injuries.

According to sources, the fire broke out when workers, basically labourers with little skill, were puncturing cans to let out the chemicals and gases. The cans had expired their best-before-use dates.

They said the liquid chemical from the punctured cans was kept in large barrels that also caught fire, resulting in a blow up.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Jim Cuddie never expected his house to be used by others as a meth lab in 2003. "I found out right away because they threw stuff in the middle of the yard. Hazmat put everything in the trash and said I had to get rid of it," said Cuddie.
With no county or state meth cleanup regulations, he hired a Denver company to do the work. Cuddie said he spent $17,000. But he was still unable to get his house off a list of Meth Lab Seizures.
In March 0f 2005, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment instituted the Colorado Board of Health Regulations Pertaining to the Cleanup of Methamphetamine Laboratories. It states after a industrial hygienist has cleared a property, the owner can request it be removed from any government lists.
Cuddie attempted to get his home removed in 2005. But said he ran into problems with the health department because his home was contaminated and cleaned up prior to the new regulations.

In the last issue of every year, Organic Process Research & Development puts together a “Safety Special Section.”

Emergency preparedness consultant Ben Johnson told the Savannah City Council that so far he's identified more than 600 hazardous chemicals being transported through the city.

And there's no major route in or out of the city where hazardous materials can't be found: I-16, I-516, I-95, Ga. 21, Bay Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, DeRenne Avenue, U.S. 80, U.S. 17.

But he hasn't completed a flow study that will give a more detailed picture of which materials are being transported on which roads. Savannah State University students will help him complete that study by actually tallying the identifying triangular hazmat placards they observe on trucks going by designated study spots.

Council requested the study in October after discussions of proposed LNG trucking revealed a lack of detailed data about the types and quantities of all hazardous materials flowing through the city.

OSHA issued $787,000 in proposed penalties Tuesday against a hazardous waste management and solvent recycling company, WRR Environmental Services Co. of Eau Claire, Wis. There were 14 willful and one serious citation filed for allegedly failing to implement measures to prevent chemical fires and explosions at its plant in Eau Claire, where an OSHA investigation took place after a June 29 explosion and fire in a solvent sludge feed tank.

The tank's roof blew off, and a nearby tank also exploded. "Employees had been working in the area of the solvent sludge feed tank immediately prior to the explosion. Fortunately, there were no reported injuries," OSHA stated in its news release.

"Even after WRR Environmental Services experienced a devastating fire that destroyed the facility in 2007, the company still failed to implement an adequate program to ensure safe operating conditions," said OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels.

Federal investigators looking into the Sept. 9 natural gas explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people and destroyed 35 homes reported Tuesday that they still don't know what caused that section of pipe to burst, but have ruled out external corrosion and have found no sign of damage from excavation.
The update from the National Transportation Safety Board also noted that "no physical evidence suggests that a pre-existing leak occurred in the ruptured pipe pieces."
In the days immediately following the blast, some experts had speculated that the 54-year-old steel gas transmission pipe may have been weakened by corrosion or by work in 2008 on a sewer line in the same location.
Saying the agency is
continuing to analyze the chemical and mechanical properties of the pipe, as well as unspecified "environmental factors at the accident site," the report added, "the investigation is still in an early phase and there is much factual information to be developed."
Lingering uncertainties over what caused that section of pipe to rupture has aroused widespread concern that other sections of PG&E pipe may have similar vulnerabilities, especially since PG&E officials insist they had inspected that portion of pipe and found nothing wrong. In the first report on the accident, which was issued Oct. 13, the safety board noted only that the steel pipe fractured lengthwise and at welds that held it together.

One of the injured in a chemical fire at old town that broke out on December 7 succumbed to his injuries Friday evening at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

The deceased was identified as Mohammad Sujan Ali, 30, a tenant of the four-storey building.

Doctors declared him dead around 6:30 in the evening.

Doctors also said 42 percent of his body got burnt in the deadly fire.

The fire broke out while refilling cigarette lighters at a building storing liquid petroleum gas and lighter refill canisters on Nazimuddin Road.

Sujan’s relative Ripon, 28—also got injured in the fire and he is still undergoing treatment at the burn unit of the same hospital.

Ripon had burns over 28 percent of his bodies, hospital sources said.

Earlier on October 6, at least 10 workers were burnt to death at a chemical factory in the capital's Dakkhin (South) Jatrabari. Four others, including three women, were severely injured.

On August 22, two persons died in a fire at a chemical warehouse in Lalbagh.

On June 3, 122 people, mostly women and children, died and scores were hurt in a deadly blaze, which originated from a chemical store in the densely populated Nimtoli in Old Dhaka.

LEBANON – Three teens turned themselves into police in connection with a soda bottle bomb that destroyed a mailbox in the Daisy Hill area of the city.
The names and ages of the teens were not released because they are juveniles, according to Lt. Shawn Freitas. The charges against them will proceed in Juvenile Court, he said.
Police said the mail box exploded into pieces, with some landing more than 20 feet from the post. Pieces of the mailbox had a strange brownish liquid on them and the bottle had a chemical smell.
The mailbox was blown up Sunday morning by what police describe as a "works" bomb, a chemical reaction bomb made from common chemicals and powerful enough to deliver second or third degree chemical burns, serious injuries or death.

NAGPUR: The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board's (MPCB) regional office in Pune has got a major reprieve as the state government has refused to link the August 2008 fire incident at a chemical factory in Bhosari with negligence on the part of the board officials in carrying out regular inspection of the factory.

Eleven women were killed and several others were injured in one of the worst ever industrial accidents to have occurred in the twin industrial township of Pimpri-Chinchwad on August 27, 2008. The chemical plant, Sai Industries, which had a green category status, has since been shut down.

"It won't be appropriate to conclude that the fire incident had resulted out of negligence on the part of the concerned authorities," minister for environment Sanjay Deotale told the state assembly in a written reply on Saturday.

ESCONDIDO — Experts in everything from air pollution to fire barriers honed a complex plan Wednesday to burn the “bomb factory” home on the north edge of Escondido. While they don’t have a turnkey strategy to deal with a situation of this rarity, explosives experts said the developing blueprint seems solid.

“The plan is tight,” said Neal Langerman, a San Diego-based chemistry expert.

The three-bedroom home on Via Scott is so cluttered with dangerous chemicals — all of which terrorists have used to make explosives — that incinerating the home is the only way to safely remove everything, authorities said.

County leaders said they don’t know how much the operation will cost.

The prescribed fire is expected early next week, but county air officials said it won’t start until the winds are blowing about 3 mph toward lesser-populated areas to the east and there’s no inversion layer that could trap smoke. That’s usually the case in the late morning.

“It’s all science-based and theoretical right now, and I think the challenge is to make sure the proper public safety precautions are being taken,” said Don Plain, head of emergency response for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. “It’s an unknown situation, to a certain extent. This is a variable that has people, I think, a little nervous, but I don’t really think (officials) have another option.”

The house was rented by George Djura Jakubec, 54, who is being held on $5 million bail on 28 counts, mostly for manufacturing or possessing explosives. He has pleaded not guilty.

BETHLEHEM -- A Bethlehem man whose brother was badly burned in a chemical-fueled fire last year was arraigned on felony and misdemeanor charges after police said they linked him to a stockpile of volatile -- and potentially deadly -- chemicals found Tuesday in his apartment building.

Bethlehem police said the collection of chemicals they found in Jason D. Sanchez's storage area in the basement of his Cherry Arms apartment building posed "a grave risk of death" to other residents in the Delaware Avenue complex.

"He had apparently been setting up some type of laboratory in there," Deputy Police Chief Timothy Beebe said. While investigators have not determined what Sanchez, 24, intended to build, Beebe said "the potential for danger was high" and that the setup did not appear to be a makeshift laboratory for manufacturing crystal meth.

Sanchez is a graduate student at Rensselaer Polytechic Institute and a teachers assistant at Albany's William S. Hackett Middle School.

Confiscated from the basement were acetone, Xylene, sulfuric acid, a propane torch, butane fuel and laboratory-grade nitric acid, Beebe said at a news conference Wednesday.

A hazmat situation at the Cherry Arms Apartment complex in Delmar created quite a scene on Tuesday, and now police have made an arrest.

Twenty-four-year-old Jason Sanchez is facing a number of charges after police say they found dangerous chemicals in the basement.

While there are some answers, police still have a lot of questions in the investigation.

David Cohen of Delmar says, "It's idiotic."

Many who live in the Town of Bethlehem are shocked that Sanchez allegedly had dangerous chemicals in the basement of his apartment building.

Cohen says, "there should be some way of checking where they came from."

Police say what they found in the basement called for multiple agencies to respond. Police say they seized acetone, xylene, laboratory grade nitric acid, sulfuric acid, a propane torch and butane, along with a homemade commercial grade vacuum chamber.

ESCONDIDO, Calif. -- Mass evacuations, the closing of a major freeway and containment of flames are just a few of the logistics being worked out in advance of the burning of a North County house that's been called a homemade bomb factory.
Officials have been holding meetings behind closed doors as they try to organize the huge operation planned for next week. On Thursday, crews will begin cutting back trees and brush around the house on Via Scott.
The burn was planned after bomb technicians and Hazmat crews discovered homemade explosives and hazardous chemicals strewn throughout the house rented by 54-year-old George Jakubec, who according to a search warrant released Wednesday confessed to robbing three banks and trying to rob one of them twice.
Pictures taken inside the house showed clutter on every surface. Mixed in with that clutter, were grenade casings, a jar of explosives, blasting caps, and chemicals. A huge wall will be built around the entire house before firefighters light the house in fire.

Insurers are concerned as claims resulting from P lab activity are on the rise

The Insurance Council is alarmed that the number of claims for damage to property from P lab activity is increasing.

Property damage from P labs is caused by the chemical contamination that results from the cook-up process and, in worst cases houses may need to be demolished.

There are also a number of instances of fire damage due to P lab explosions.

Insurance Council spokesman, Terry Jordan, says property losses are becoming more significant and insurers are becoming increasingly concerned about the extent of these losses.

Thieves have stolen the wreckage of a hazardous waste management plant which was gutted in a chemical fire.

Police said the metal-framed building structure had been taken from the site of BCB Environmental Management in Tockwith, North Yorkshire.

The plant was destroyed in a large fire in August and the company later went into liquidation.

The Environment Agency has been alerted amid concerns the stolen building debris could be contaminated.

North Yorkshire Police were alerted to the theft when the Environment Agency started clearing up the site on Wednesday.

VADODARA: Four days after fire broke at KDAC Chem Private Ltd in Nandesari-GIDC, the cops are yet to arrest its owner and other two officials. One person had died and seven suffered injuries when the factory caught fire on Monday morning. The cops have already arrested C M Jhalani, security manager of KDAC who was in charge of the safety and security of the factory.

Company owner Dhansukh Gaur and two other officials, Kamal Chandani and K K Patel, are still at large. "We are looking for those absconding and they will be arrested soon. The offence registered against them is of serious nature and investigations are on to find reasons behind the fire," said a police official.

(Reuters) - A professor at a chemistry college in eastern France was fined 8,000 euros and given a suspended jail sentence on Thursday for causing a lab explosion that killed a colleague and gravely injured a student.

The accident occurred in 2006 when professor Alain Louati went out for lunch and an open bottle of highly inflammable ethylene triggered an explosion that tore through his laboratory in the city of Mulhouse, near the German border.

The blast, which blew out windows and ceilings and blackened walls, killed a professor in a room above the lab and injured a high-school student in an adjacent room. The young woman suffered severe fractures to the head and body, was temporarily in a coma and was left handicapped.

A court in Mulhouse found Louati, 62, guilty of involuntary homicide and causing injury by negligence and gave him a suspended 18-month prison sentence.

At his trial in September, Louati was accused of using substandard rubber tubes and of leaving the flask of ethylene open. Louati denied responsibility for the blast, saying he had closed the bottle and someone must have entered the lab and reopened it.

State officials are concerned about the number of damaged “nurse” tanks on the roads and on private property in Iowa.

Pottawattamie County Emergency Management coordinator Jeff Theulen said the topic came up at the Iowa HAZMAT Conference in Ames in October.

Nurse tanks are used to transport anhydrous ammonia as a liquid under pressure from the dealer to the field.

Theulen said there are 26,000 nurse tanks in Iowa.

“While a lot of them are inspected or in good shape, some are damaged and still holding (chemicals),” Theulen said, and a damaged tank is accident waiting to happen.

The number of meth labs found in Kentucky has reached an all time high.

Kentucky State Police report there were 111 meth labs found during the month of October. That's more than ever before. It brings the yearly total to 919, which breaks another record.

Hazmat crews have had their work cut out for them in 2010. With more than a month left in the year, the number of meth labs discovered in Kentucky has already passed last year's record of 741, and the state is on track to exceed 1000 labs by year's end. "We really think that it's going to take a community approach to this and working with our legislators and developing new techniques and new ways for law enforcement to deal with this particular problem," Kentucky State Police Lt. David Jude said.

Back in March, the The California Division of Occupational Safety & Health (Cal/OSHA) levied $67,720 in fines against the the University of California, Los Angeles, Chemistry & Biochemistry Department for laboratory health and safety violations identified during inspections last fall. UCLA appealed the citations. Cal/OSHA and the university reached an agreement on the citations at the end of September, consolidating some of the citations and reducing the fines to $36,690.

Most of the agreement involves decreasing the fines by increasing the “good faith” component of the penalty calculation, but there are also two other things of interest: One is what happened regarding the the department’s chemical hygiene officer (CHO), who Cal/OSHA called unqualified. The second is is that a “repeat” citation for lack of training was reduced to “serious.” Cal/OSHA previously cited UCLA for lack of training in the death of Sheri Sangji.

In assessing penalties, Cal/OSHA can consider a number of factors: the extent of the problem; the likelihood of injury, illness, or disease; the size of the employer; any history of previous violations; and the “good faith” of the employer. According to the regulation, good faith “is based upon the quality and extent of the safety program the employer has in effect and operating. It includes the employer’s awareness of CAL/OSHA, and any indications of the employer’s desire to comply with the Act, by specific displays of accomplishments.”

APEX, N.C. — For Wake County residents along Ten-Ten Road, the memory of a chemical fire and explosion an Apex hazardous waste plant in 2006 is fresh enough to create worries about a planned expansion at Motiva Enterprises.

Tankers that supply gas stations with fuel get their load from Motiva. About 75 trucks a day fill up from the gasoline stored in six large, white tanks at the property.

A plan to build an additional, even larger tank as met with opposition from neighbors.

Karin Evanoff, a resident of the Southchase subdivision across Ten-Ten Road from Motiva, said, "To have such a site close to Ten-Ten Road is a very frightening thought.

"Knowing they're wanting to do this, right across the street from a huge neighborhood, half mile from two schools, is just simply incompatible," said Evanoff. "I don't know how many of us would be left if that thing blew."

Eddie Wilson, manager of Fast Lube Plus next door to Motiva, said the expansion and added traffic could put the brakes on his business.

"I don't think as many customers would want to be coming in here with tanker trucks being out front," he said.

Siren speed questioned in aftermath of chemical spill. Emergency workers attend to the scene of a sulfuric acid leak at a chemical plant in southeast Scarborough on Wednesday, Nov. 3.. (November 3, 2010) Staff photo/NICK PERRY
This time, it was no drill.
When sirens sounded Wednesday, Nov. 3, following a sulfuric acid spill at a West Hill chemical plant, a warning system set up for area residents and tested many times faced its first real emergency.

Now, in addition to finding out what went wrong at Chemtura Canada, those responsible for the system must determine whether sirens sounded quickly enough.

Jack Horner, manager of the plant on Chemical Court, acknowledged Friday it "took quite a while before the siren got activated," estimating the warning came "something like" 15 minutes after the spill.

BUFFALO, NY (WBFO) - The two victims involved in Tuesday's explosion at the Dupont chemical plant have been identified. Richard Folaron of South Wales was killed in the blast. William Freeburg of Angola was seriously injured.
57-year-old Folaron leaves behind a wife, three daughters and a son. He had been with Mollenburg-Betz for 15 years. 50-year old Freeburg, his co-worker and friend, has been with the company for 25 years. He remains at the Erie County Medical Center with face and neck burns, but is expected to fully recover.

James Camarre is vice president for Mollenburg-Betz. The close-knit company of about 150 workers that employed the two men. Fighting back emotion, Camarre said they had no reason to believe the two men would not be safe when they went to the Dupont work site on Tuesday.

"We believe we do have an exemplary safety program. We work hand in hand with OSHA as part of their voluntary protection program," said Camarre. "We do what we can to make sure our employees go home the same way they come in in thje morning - injury free. Unfortunately, yesterday [Tuesday] didn't work out that way."

A day after evacuating a 200-metre area around a Radisson Drive home for what later turned out not to be a public safety hazard, the fire department said it acted prudently.

Homes and schools were cleared after medical staff believed they had come into contact with organophosphate after treating an elderly man.

Officials were worried the man was exposed to the deadly chemical and others could be at risk, too.

"I think what you do is deal with the information you have at the time," said spokesman Brian McAsey.

"That information told us there might be a great risk to human health and life and we went about doing our protocols. I think we did the right thing."

NEW BEDFORD — After being closed for three days of cleanup following a small chemical fire Monday night, classes will resume today at Keith Middle School.

The school was closed to the public Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Before today’s reopening, Mayor Scott W. Lang tried to assuage parents’ concerns during an open house at the school Thursday afternoon.

He told the group of about three dozen who turned out that the multiple air quality tests performed in the last three days have shown "no issues whatsoever."

He said there will be a review of the district’s protocol surrounding the storage of chemicals. The small fire started in a storage cabinet that contained chemicals typically used in a science lab.

"I’m not a chemist ... but I can tell you it won’t happen again," Lang said.

The school replaced ceiling tiles near the affected area and removed the affected cabinets and chemicals in them from first-floor "prep room," Lang said. The prep room, according to the mayor, still needs cleanup work.

Ten months after two research scientists were killed in an accidental fire caused due to reaction of chemicals in a laboratory at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Trombay, the BARC officials have decided to stop storage of chemicals in the lab and to reduce the intake of interns as they are “more prone to accidents”.

The move comes after a committee, appointed by the BARC to probe the cause of the fire, made recommendations in this regard in its report, submitted last month.

Acting on the recommendations, the BARC officials have stopped chemicals’ storage in the lab and started the process of scientifically disposing of all the old chemicals stored in the lab. Moreover, the BARC has also reduced the intake of interns on its campus, because, according to officials, they are amateur and are more prone to accidents.

KOLKATA: After a day of anguish, a couple of research scholars gathered at the portico of Presidency University's Derozio Building, a faint glimmer of hope in their eyes. They hoped to recover at least a few pages of their research work carried out over the last two years. But the interiors of the organic chemistry laboratory remained strictly out of bounds. The fire department and PWD officials have sealed the room.

Some other rooms, which suffered less damage, were opened. A few research scholars rushed inside to recover partially charred journals and documents some of them yet to be published.

"We were able to partially recover some documents and files of research from the almirahs," said Dipak Mondal, head of the department, chemistry.

A team of forensic experts visited the campus on Saturday afternoon and collected items for analysis. The report will be completed in a month. The amount of destruction and loss, however, immediately hit the research scholars and teachers, as many of them went on a recce on the third floor of the building.

Gandhi Kar, one of the professors whose laboratory of synthetic organic chemistry was completely gutted, was still in a state of shock. He stayed away from the university on Saturday, although he elaborately detailed the instruments that were lost to the fire.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The long-term health effects of a catastrophic chemical accident at Graniteville five years ago will be studied by University of South Carolina researchers who recently won a nearly $3 million federal grant for the work.

South Carolina's study, headed by epidemiologist Erik Svendsen, will look at whether chlorine exposure is causing people's lungs to age prematurely.

Previous research by Svendsen found that, in the first year after the train wreck and chemical leak, the lungs of some people who breathed chlorine were aging at about four times the rate that they were before the 2005 accident.

The new, five-year study will follow up on that research. The $2.9 million grant will fund the first long-term chlorine health study of its kind, according to USC.

AN ACTION plan is being put together to stop pollution at a popular nature spot.
Dedridge Burn was badly affected by chemicals that escaped following the massive fire at nearby Amcor Flexibles in September.
Environmental experts discovered higher levels of chronium in the burn following the fire and locals complained of a foul smell and a film covering the water.
While a clean-up operation has helped to reduce these problems since the fire, council bosses have been pressured by people in Dedridge and Bellsquarry to take action to prevent pollution from another spill.
As a first step, a meeting will be held with representatives from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish Water, community councils and Brucefield Industrial Estate.

Dhaka, Oct 28 (bdnews24.com) — A mobile court has fined two warehouses in Old Dhaka for storing flammable chemicals, hours after an explosion in the same area.

Mohammad Asad, owner of a warehouse at Bangshal, was fined Tk 400,000 on Thursday for storing flammable chemicals without a fire certificate.

Locals said the area was covered with smoke after the explosion in the warehouse.

They brought out a number processions immediately following the explosion demanding eviction of chemical warehouses from the area.

SAN JOSE, CALIF. - The explosion of a natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, south of San Francisco, has underscored a growing concern about the capabilities of utility employees who watch over the nation's pipelines and whose errors have been linked to a number of mishaps, some of them catastrophic.

The National Transportation Safety Board has said that among the questions it is investigating in the Sept. 9 explosion is whether workers at a PG&E pipeline-monitoring terminal in Milpitas, Calif., were fatigued or poorly trained. Just eight days after the blast, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration moved to speed up adoption of a rule to ensure that workers doing similar jobs at companies across the country are well-trained and rested - especially because many of those workers put in 12-hour shifts.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) will enhance security at all its refineries following the fire at the borough pit in Koyali refinery this June.

Sources said though the damage was negligible, the fire near Vadodara drew attention as it was the second in a row after the fire at IOCL’s Jaipur installation.

​The residents of Venice, Illinois, claim that the massive factory on the north side of their town, across the river from St. Louis on State Route 3, has been poisoning them for decades. Now, after a massive explosion and fire earlier this month, they may have finally found an ally in the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
 
But while the people of Venice have long believed that the culprit is the Dow Chemical Company -- the former owners of the factory, who briefly used the facility for nuclear weapons and fuel research -- the EPA is taking issue with Magnesium Elektron North America, which has occupied the site since 2003.

Magnesium Elektron produces magnesium alloy, a type of metal that's used in batteries, laptops and cell phones. On October 4 around 10:30 p.m., a batch of metal overheated inside a furnace and caught fire. A sprinkler system doused the blaze with water, but, instead of extinguishing the flames, the water only made matters worse. A chemical reaction with hydrogen gas caused a blast that rocked a nearby residential neighborhood.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--Tuesday afternoon CMPD Bomb Squad along with Special Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and ATF completed “render safe” procedures at 10622 Mt. Holly Road.  This is the house of teenager, Jessie Bauguess, who was arrested after a pen explosion at Turning Point Academy School. 
 
Members of the Arson Task Force and CFD Hazmat are currently processing the scene for evidence and are awaiting arrival of EPA experts for evaluation of final clean up procedures.
 
Based on the investigation of the Arson Task Force and response to 10622 the CMPD Bomb Squad has identified the explosive used in the detonation at Turning Point School Monday.  This explosive is extremely potent and unstable.  During initial testing of a minute sample of the material, a spontaneous detonation injured three members of the CFD HazMat response team which was assisting the CMPD Bomb Squad and Arson Task Force. All three members were treated and released for injuries which could have been more devastating.

BUDAPEST, Hungary, October 15, 2010 (ENS) - Hungarian Police are interrogating a second suspect in Hungary's worst ecological disaster, the October 4 spill of toxic red sludge from an aluminum plant in western Hungary that killed at least eight people and injured more than 150 others. Fifty injured people are still hospitalized, including two in critical condition.

One of the executives of MAL Hungarian Aluminium Zrt, identified by police only as Jozsef D., is "subject to suspicion beyond reasonable doubt for criminal negligence, leading to public endangerment and environmental damages," the police said in a statement today.
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According the the National Bureau of Investigation, "The suspect failed to prepare measures that were necessary for disaster relief efforts, as well as the protection of life, physical safety of people and assets during similar disasters and failed to establish defence structures, signalling and alarm systems that would mitigate the impact of such disasters."

BUREAU COUNTY, Ill. - The chemical fire at the Euclid Chemical plant in Sheffield, IL burned out on Thursday after smoldering for five days.

The plant has been declared a total loss; firefighters attempted to fight the blaze and save the building on the morning of October 9 but were pulled back after several reported having trouble breathing due to toxic chemicals.

None of the plant's 15 employees were injured in the fire. Analyasts from the EPA will remain on site to monitor chemical levels. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

THE BURSCOUGH chemical waste plant explosion was an accident waiting to happen, residents claimed last night.
Ken Davies, a member of Burscough Residents Against Transfer Station (BRATS) told the Advertiser that people are now asking why PHS Waste Management, was allowed to be sited so close to their homes in the first place after the explosion on Tuesday.
Ken said the group warned the council years ago that this sort of dangerous incident, at the plant formerly Reformation Disposal Services Ltd, was inevitable.
He said: “This catastrophe is big enough to set alarms bells ringing. These plants should be sited where there are no risks to residential areas.”

Bureau County residents exposed to fumes from Saturday's fire at Euclid Chemical Company near Sheffield aren't likely to experience long-term detrimental health effects, federal employees told the Bureau County board at its regular meeting Tuesday.
A number of firefighters and local residents complained of symptoms Saturday, said Mark Johnson from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. ATSDR works with the Environmental Protection Agency and local health departments to assess health impacts of exposure to contaminants that might occur as a result of incidents like Saturday's chemical fire that destroyed the local plastics plant. About 20 firefighters were affected and some were taken to local hospitals, he said.
"Three of those appeared to be admitted with symptoms such as dizziness, headaches and nausea, which is consistent with chemical exposure," said Johnson.
Some residents also reported respiratory problems and asthma attacks, Johnson said, but these effects seem to be short-term irritations.

Tens of thousands of people are living close to companies which work with dangerous chemicals yet do not meet fire safety standards, the Telegraaf reports on Friday, quoting environment ministry figures.

Ministry inspectors carried out checks on 340 companies which store more than 10 tonnes of dangerous, inflammable or explosive chemicals on their premises. Of those, 58% did not meet rules covering the risk of fire, the paper said.

Caretaker environment minister Tineke Huizinga has written to local authorities stating her concerns about this ‘lack of responsibility’ and ‘passive approach’. Fourteen local authorities face legal action for failing to protect their citizens. These include The Hague, Terneuzen, Hillegom and Apeldoorn.

An explosion at a fireworks storage depot in central Enschede in 2000 killed 23 people and destroyed a 1,500 home residential area. The council had failed to ensure safety standards were being met.

Day one of the drive against warehouses of combustible chemicals in the city's residential areas yesterday ended without visiting its nerve centre in Old Dhaka amid lack of coordination between the mobile court and fire service officials.

Starting around 12:45pm, the court managed to raid only four warehouses of inflammable chemicals and a plastic factory at Elephant Road and outer part of Old Dhaka in three hours.

Of them, the three chemical storehouses at Elephant Road were found empty, as their owners have already shifted them outside of Dhaka in line with the government directive.

Following the devastating Nimtoli fire that killed at least 121 people in June this year, the government directed the owners to shift their warehouses of combustible chemicals from residential areas within September 30.

CHARLESTON -- A multi-million dollar lawsuit alleges a third death can be attributed to a 2008 explosion at a Charleston-area chemical plant.

The Bayer Corporation and West Virginia State University are named as co-defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit filed Sept. 16 by Mt. Hope resident Portia Gray. In her Kanawha Circuit Court complaint, Gray alleges her son, Ra'Sean, died weeks after breathing the fallout left in his dormitory room from a 2008 explosion at Bayer's Institute plant.

The suit is the first to be filed against Bayer relating to the explosion that resulted in the deaths of two of its employees.

SYRACUSE, Utah (ABC 4 News) - What appears to have started out as a teen aged prank has blown up into a full scale felony case of bomb-making in this Utah bedroom community.
With a few household items -- a plastic soda op bottle, a roll of aluminum foil and a popular household cleaner -- kids are building bombs that make the old cherry bombs look like firecrackers and can blow off an arm.
Teenagers call them "bottle bombs," "cleaner bombs," or "works bombs," after the brand of cleaner used to make them. Public safety officials call them chemical weapons.
"There've been reports of explosions that will actually break bones and take fingers off," says Syracuse Fire Captain Kyle Nance.
You can watch people – mostly teen aged boys – injure themselves, playing with these homemade explosives.
While most amateur pyro-technicians walk away without losing a limb, most of them seem completely unaware of the danger of the smoky residue after each blast, and walk or stand in it. They too are suffering injury from these explosions.

DONNA - State environmental inspectors want the property owner of an old manufacturing planet to come up with a plan to clean up a recent chemical spill.

Two weeks ago a fire broke out at the site on 11th Street, south of Business 83 in Donna. A chemical called nahptha was stored in barrels at the plant. The chemical is used in dry cleaning.

A demolition crew started tearing down one of the silos on site. There was about 10 inches of sludge and chemical left inside the silo and it sparked the fire.
The city of Donna issued a permit when tearing down the plant. Officials say the workers did not follow protocol including cutting down tall grass. The site is located just feet from a school.

TCEQ spokesperson Jaime Garza says the owner received a certified letter from inspectors. The owner must submit a plan to cleanup the site to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. If the owner does not comply he could face fines or other penalties.

Tema, Sept 27, GNA - Nii Armah Ashitey, Greater Accra Regional Minister, on Monday advised companies using inflammable products to constantly observe safety practices to prevent fire outbreaks. He also asked management of such companies to provide their workers with fire protective clothing and equipment.

Nii Ashitey made the call when he visited the Midland International Ghana Limited Company, which experienced a fire outbreak on Saturday. Four persons carrying out repair works on a tank at the company lost their lives in the explosion, while properties running into several thousands of Ghana Cedis were also lost in the blaze.
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The Minister asked the Ghana National Fire Service (GNF) to intensify its anti-fire education and drills at companies to prevent out break of fires.

Mr Kwabena Obese-Jecty, Managing-Director of Midland, who conducted the Minister and his entourage round the burnt premises, said the company has always taken fire safety issues seriously since it started operations in 2001. He commended the GNFS for effectively containing the fire and preventing it from spreading to nearby establishments. Mr Obese-Jecty also praised the Police for keeping the people out of the premises during the incident. Madam Jemima Anku, Marketing Manager of the Company, said that the four people, who died in the incident, were employees of M&B Engineering, who were carrying out repair works on an empty storage tank at the premises. She said the company deals in ethanol, a chemical product, used in the production of alcohol, pharmaceutical products, cosmetics and perfume. Madam Anku said that routine maintenance works were mostly carried out at the company during week ends and holidays. She said the entire office block of the company, loading shed, a tanker, forklift, a pick-up vehicle, storage tanks among other properties were lost during the fire outbreak. 27 Sept 10

OAKLAND, Calif. — A California judge has ordered Target Corp. to stop improperly disposing of damaged or defective items that qualify as hazardous waste.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Steven Brick signed the order Friday based on allegations brought by the state and several cities and counties.
Their lawsuit contends that Target stores statewide have routinely thrown hazardous items such as bleach, pesticides, paint, aerosols and electronics directly into the trash.
Among the claims, the Los Angeles city attorney's office says Los Angeles stores sent more than 5,000 pounds of unsalable hazardous products to a regional food bank.
Minneapolis-based Target says in a statement that the company has a comprehensive program in place to ensure stores comply with California law.

Two months after the fire and spill at J&J Chemical Co. in Athens, a sickly sweet odor still hangs in the air along Trail Creek, and an unnatural turquoise tint still colors the water. Cleanup workers are laboring to reduce the stubbornly persistent chemical load in the creek. Concentrations of formaldehyde and other chemicals have mostly dissipated, but dichlorobenzene levels are still falling only slowly.
The book isn't closed on this spill, but those aren't the only reasons why. In addition to the full remediation of Trail Creek, our community and state still need a lot of answers about this incident. We all need assurances that procedures are being examined and adjusted for the "next time" that we hope doesn't come.
For some, the key line of questioning revolves around the fire response: In light of all the potential impacts to air quality, water quality, neighboring properties, and public safety from any course of action taken during the fire, is the appropriate response to apply a large volume of water to this type of chemical fire?

WORCESTER —  Federal environmental officials told school and health officials this morning that the clean-up of the Grafton Elementary Street School is going smoothly, addressing the potentially hazardous mercury that was brought into a classroom by a student on Tuesday.

“That's really good news,” said Worcester schools Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey J. Mulqueen, who was at the school throughout the morning.

A specialized top-to-bottom cleaning of the building is ongoing.

A sixth-grade student brought nearly a pint of mercury to Grafton Street School to show a teacher on Tuesday, and that prompted an environmental investigation.

Despite the optimistic news this morning, Mr. Mulqueen said classes on Monday will be held at the Fanning Building on Chatham Street. He said parents and guardians were told last night that students would be moved from the Grafton Street Elementary School to the Fanning Building today and Monday.

“We are still planning school there Monday,” Mr. Mulqueen said. “We want to avoid any confusion.”

The district bused about 240 students in Grades 3 to 6 away from Grafton Street's Building 2 yesterday as a multi-agency decontamination effort got under way.

Students and faculty in the building, plus second-graders who entered Building 2 to have lunch, had until 6 p.m. yesterday to voluntarily have their urine tested for mercury exposure. Mercury leaves the body quickly, so testing after a certain window doesn't make sense, Mr. Mulqueen said.

A chemical company in Gloucestershire has been fined £66,000 following an explosion at its factory in 2006.

The incident at Biolab UK's site near Cheltenham saw chemicals leak into the River Coln, killing about 2,500 fish.

In May, the firm admitted at Gloucester Crown Court failing to take all measures to prevent the accident and failing to limit the consequences.

At Cirencester Crown Court on Friday, Judge Martin Picton also ordered the firm to pay £80,000 in costs.

The fire broke out at the water and swimming pool treatment company's factory at Andoversford on 6 September 2006.

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - The return home for people living in the Electra could be delayed again, by yet another mystery deep below the building.

The chemical smell has evaporated, at least at street-level. Vancouver fire crews are still on stand-by, and the focus of the city investigation has shifted to a sealed underground vault.

The Vancouver Sun reports it was punctured by the contractor on-site, who then filled it with expanding foam - that created enough heat to spark an underground fire.

There are now worries the vault contained PCBs used by the hydro substation next door. Vancouver Coastal Health still isn't expressing an official medical concern.

DANVERS, Mass. -- Four years after a chemical explosion leveled a Danvers neighborhood, residents are left with another big mess.
They said a contractor hired to make repairs has abandoned the neighborhood.
Last week, Cape Ann Equipment walked away from the massive project to upgrade the sewer and water drainage systems, according to residents.
Workers left piles of dirt and unfinished sidewalks, the said and neighbors complained that the contractor botched the job from the start. They said the mistakes have caused drainage problems that have already flooded newly re-built homes.
Town officials are now working with the bonding company to find another contractor.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Bayer CropScience agreed to pay the state Department of Environmental a nearly half a million dollars to settle several alleged violations at its plant in Institute over the past year.

The $460,000 settlement, announced Wednesday, does not involve the August 2008 explosion at the plant.

"These agreements resolve a backlog with the agency and cumulatively clear the plate," said company Vice President Steve Hedrick.

The DEP did, however, allege the company was storing the deadly chemical methyl isocyanate, or MIC, in an underground tank that lacked "full compliance." But Bayer said there were "other redundant control measures" and that it was "operating safely without danger to the plant and community."

WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency said it is investigating the release of certain chemicals, including benzene, a known carcinogen, at a BP PLC plant in Texas.

In a written statement Thursday, the agency said it has asked the British oil giant to disclose what steps it took in response to an April 6 incident at the facility that "resulted in the flaring of chemicals that could have reasonably resulted in a catastrophic release of a hazardous air pollutant."

A spokesman for the agency said the incident involves the release of 500,000 pounds of various chemicals, including roughly 17,000 pounds of benzene. The spokesman added that no one was injured in the incident.

Northeastern University said today it is launching a review of its protocols for handling hazardous materials in the wake of the suspected suicide by cyanide of a researcher found dead yesterday in her Milford home.

Emily Staupe, 30, a Northeastern reseacher, graduate student and member of the Class of 2005, was found in her bedroom, where authorities located a bag of material labeled cyanide, said Milford police Chief Thomas J. O’Loughlin.

Police are probing whether Staupe smuggled the cyanide from Northeastern.

“Although the University has protocols surrounding the use of hazardous materials, I am calling for an extensive review of these protocols following Emily’s death,” Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun said in a statement. “A review is both wise and appropriate at this time.”

Aoun said he asked Melvin Bernstein, the university’s vice provost for research and a former Department of Homeland Security official, to conduct the review.

WESTWOOD , Mass. -- A woman’s suicide led police to search for cyanide at a local train station.

Police say former Northeastern University lab technician Emily Staupe took her own life by ingesting crystallized cyanide.

According to investigators, Staupe, 30, took a train into Boston Saturday and entered a Northeastern lab.

Authorities say she left her car at the Westwood commuter rail station.

The state police bomb squad and a Hazmat team searched the car.

No dangerous materials were located and there reportedly was no threat to commuters.

The Boston Herald reports Staupe had recently been laid off from her job and posted a farewell message to her friends on Facebook Saturday night.

Police say it is still not clear where Staupe obtained the cyanide.

Staupe was found inside her Milford home early Sunday morning.

Police say a plastic bag marked with the word "cyanide" was located near her body.

No other hazardous materials were located inside the home.

Investigators are looking into whether the chemical had been taken from Northeastern's lab.

According to the Boston Herald, one terrorist expert says regardless of where she obtained the chemical, this case has prompted safety fears and proves universities need to increase security to prevent potential public safety risks.

A fatal house explosion in July in Norfolk caused by a propane leak prompted a state investigation that has focused on a Westfield plant that allegedly shipped potentially dangerous propane throughout New England.


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Millions of gallons of propane sold and distributed across New England could be lacking the necessary smell that warns people about leaky gas grills and home heating systems.

That danger was discovered during an investigation by the state fire marshal and Attorney General Martha Coakley that found the major distributor of the liquid fuel in Westfield was allegedly shipping propane without the federally required chemical odorant.

The propane that leaked into the house at the elderly residential complex in July did not have the telltale “rotten egg’’ smell that tells people propane or natural gas is leaking, said state fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan.

Indiana State Police have a new weapon in the fight against methamphetamine: an Internet-based system to track repeat buyers of the drug’s key ingredient and help locate groups who appear to be working together.

“It’s an efficiency tool for law enforcement,” 1st Sgt. Niki Crawford, commander of the state police meth-suppression section, said Tuesday during a visit to the Sellersburg Post to introduce the new system and train some 40 state and local officers in its use.

The department’s meth-lab response van for the region also was on display—one of 13 $75,000-to-$100,000 trucks and vans around the state equipped with breathing equipment, gear to test whether air in suspected meth labs is safe, test the chemicals found in them and clean up the operations.

A meth lab “is a hazmat scene and a crime scene,” said Sgt. Paul Andry, who is responsible for the state police response to meth labs in the southern half of Indiana.

In addition to the risk of fire and explosion, Andry said, chemicals used in meth labs can endanger nearby water supplies, since several of the ingredients are carcinogens.

The students’ laboratory notebooks and the TTU police and EH&S investigation reports, along with related interview transcripts and summaries, collectively reveal a lack of attention to safety at TTU at all levels—lab, department, and university. The incident has prompted changes in TTU’s laboratory safety program as well as new oversight of laboratories funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which funded Brown’s research through Northeastern University’s Center of Excellence for Awareness & Localization of Explosives-Related Threats (ALERT).

“This was a very unfortunate and unnecessary accident that could have resulted in loss of life very easily,” says T. Taylor Eighmy, a civil engineer and TTU’s vice president of research. “I think that the graduate student in question has culpability here of carelessness in the lab.” And beyond that, at the department and institutional level, “the culture around safety was just not as prevalent as it should have been,” Eighmy says.

A FIREFIGHTER maimed in a factory explosion could have been spared his horrific injuries had there been warning signs about the dangerous chemicals inside, a coroner has found.

Veteran firefighter Richard Zapart almost died after chemical vapours caused a sudden blast at Japanese Screens and Interiors in Yarraville in October 2007.

The factory, which had just passed a council safety inspection, did not have external HAZCHEM signs despite using potentially explosive chemicals.

Coroner Heather Spooner yesterday said Mr Zapart and three colleagues who entered the factory to investigate a smouldering fan had no idea of the dangers that lay inside.

VICTORIAN authorities have new guidelines for chemical safety after a coroner's finding into a 2007 fire at a Yarraville factory

Coroner Heather Spooner yesterday found that nitrocellulose, commonly used as an ingredient in lacquer, was responsible for the ''extraordinary'' fire at the Hall Street factory that housed Japanese Screens and Interiors.

She found that the firefighters who fought the blaze were compromised by a lack of signs about the hazardous material on site. Under the new guidelines, suppliers of nitrocellulose products will be subject to checks to determine whether they are complying with occupational health and safety obligations and a register of known nitrocellulose product purchasers will be established.

The man who was killed in a fire at Quad/Graphics averted a massive chemical spill at the plant, but could not save his own life.

After days of investigation, fire officials now have more information on the sequence of events that ended with the death of James Bruce Mitchell, 60, a 20-year employee at Quad/Graphics, a printing plant on Old Columbia Road.

While working with a forklift inside the factory Friday, Mitchell had punctured a line containing toluene, a flammable chemical used in the printing process, said Dickson Fire Chief Richard Greer. The chemical had spilled onto his body, but he was able to climb a flight of stairs and shut off a secondary valve, preventing a potentially huge chemical leak at the factory, the chief said.

While the investigation is ongoing, we wanted to find out exactly what this toxic gas is. KSFY Action News Reporter Jake Iversen gives you a closer look at how firefighters and hazmat crews deal with this deadly chemical.

Emergency crews in Sioux Falls say that cases dealing with the chemical hydrogen sulfide are very rare and almost non existent.

Jim Sideras says, "From what we've seen and heard from other departments it's very unusual and in some cases it's almost isolated.

But that doesn't mean they haven't seen the chemical before.

Jim Sideras says, "Normally it's found in nature when things start to decompose however you can mix chemicals to get hydrogen sulfide and when you do that it can be extremely fatal to breathe in those fumes.

Firefighters and hazmat-mat crews are trained to deal with dangerous chemicals but if they do not know what they're dealing with, it can cause problems.

Jim Sideras says, "Any exposure can be deadly for firefighters just because we have gear on doesn't protect us from certain chemicals.

"Chemicals tend to show some physical reaction and when people have been exposed to hydrogen sulfide it can turn pennies in their pocket different colors. This is just one thing firefighters look for when dealing with chemical emergencies."

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Firefighters said chlorine, while common, is a dangerous chemical, made evident by two chlorine explosions in the Charlotte area in just one week.
“If you put the wrong chemical in the wrong environment in the wrong place, a lot of things can happen and an explosion is entirely possible,” said Battalion Chief Phil Bosche, with the Charlotte Fire Department.
On Monday, two employees at an east Charlotte pool were injured when chlorine exploded onto them. On Tuesday of last week, the 12-year-old daughter of a Channel 9 producer had to be airlifted to a hospital after being burned by a chlorine explosion.

US officials did not authorise use of a chemical mixture that killed a British government scientist in an explosives accident, an inquest has heard.

Terry Jupp, 46, suffered massive burns on a testing range at Shoeburyness, Essex, in August 2002.

He was part of a British-American team investigating homemade bombs that could be used in terrorism.

The inquest was also told of American concern that the British were not sticking to planned experiments.

The inquest heard that the American official who commissioned the research had not given permission for Mr Jupp's experiment.

Mr Jupp died after a 10kg mixture of three undisclosed substances caught alight. He died from his injuries six days later.