Evacuation Ends As Butadiene Spill Contained at Chemical Plant Akron, OH, United States

Added: Wednesday, January 12, 2000 - 7:37 PM ----- About 400 gallons of butadiene, a flammable material used in the production of synthetic rubber, was accidentally released at the BF Goodrich's General Chemical Plant this morning.

The company said in a prepared statement that they did not expect any effect on areas or people outside the plant site.

Following the plant's emergency plant, about 100 employees and visitors on the plant site were evacuated. Local fire and haz mat teams were notified, and as a precaution, local officials evacutaed personnel in a one-half mile perimeter around the plant site.

At about 10:30 a.m., haz mat officials began allowing plant personnel to return to the facility, and the process of returning evacuated neighbors was underway, according to the company.

The company also said "it appears that there will be no consequence to areas outside the plant. It is expected that there will be no environmental impact from this release, and no impact to surrounding neighbors."

The company says it "will immediately commence the process of determining the exact cause of the release, and affected plant operations will not resume until the cause has been remedied."

Fire Lt. Marc Finney said no one was injured and emergency crews were able to vent the butadiene fumes with fans. He said the toxic chemical leaked through a broken storage tank seal.

http://www.humanitarian.net/challenges.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 13, 2000

Answers

"...operations will not resume until the cause has been remedied"

I wonder if he caught himself in the nick of time before saying "remediated"?

Has anyone checked his tongue for self-inflicted bite wounds?

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 13, 2000.

Carl:

What's up with this?

The company says it "will immediately commence the process of determining the exact cause of the release, and affected plant operations will not resume until the cause has been remedied."

Fire Lt. Marc Finney said, "the toxic chemical leaked through a broken storage tank seal."

If that's the case, why are operations stopped? If it's just a broken seal then the damage is done. Thought this was kinda strange.

-- joe bolin (javajoe@tcac.net), January 13, 2000.

looks like more doublespeak to me...

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

The company says it "will immediately commence the process of determining the exact cause of the release, and affected plant operations will not resume until the cause has been remedied."

And I'm sure they'll say the cause WASN'T Y2K-related. What a bunch of spinners and liars.

-- (ira@holfter.org), January 13, 2000.

Broken seal in storage tank. Could be any number of things. First thing that comes to mind is the pump. Hopefully there is a spare and evacuation of the line is all that's required to break into the pump for repairs (BD becomes gaseous at low atmospheric temp, evacuation is necessary to prevent further discharge.) If no spare pump, then the vessel will have to be evacuated to replace the seal. Thousands and thousands of gallons of BD. Also, could be a bad seal type, which would lead mgmt. to question viability of similar seals and assess the risk of continuing operations before replacement of same. Seen that happen before. Now, was it Y2K? Sounds unlikely, unless pressure monitoring system failure causes a disk to rupture. Just my $.02.

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), January 13, 2000.