May 31, 2009
COMMENTARY: MIC storage at Institute, WV: A Ticking Bomb
By Nancy Swan
Special to Huntingtonnews.net
Twenty five governors, including West Virginia's Governor Joe Manchin, proclaimed May as Toxic Injury Awareness and Education Month. Following the explosion last August at the Bayer plant, Gov. Manchin introduced a bill to provide timely information to protect emergency workers, but there is no such legislation to protect residents. As a former teacher and victim of methyl isocyanate poisoning, I know that toxic injury awareness and education is worthless if its lessons are not learned and appropriate action not taken.
The first week in May, the refusal of Bayer CropScience to provide chemical safety records led the local news. Then on May 17th, the New York Times ran a benign sounding editorial, “Chemical Plant Safety.” The editorial wasn’t about plant safety; it was about unsafe conditions at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, where over a hundred tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC), one of the most deadly and toxic chemicals in the industry is being stored.
False assurances
The failed safety systems that led to the explosion at Bayer Institute plant is an ominous reminder to our national leaders of the lesson not learned from the disasterous leak of MIC at the Union Carbide plant. In 1984, India was so fearful and preoccupied with a downturn in the economy, climate change, and massive layoffs, that it failed to heed warnings about the danger of the MIC storage at the Union Carbide plant.
India's government officials, continued to placed their faith in foreign owned chemical giant in Institute, West Virginia. The Institute plant assured India that the storage tanks in Bhopal were safe, despite citations for safety violations, failure of monitoring systems, leaks of MIC into the community, an explosion and fatality
The Institute's assurances proved worthless. On December 2, 1984, a chain reaction exploded a tank of MIC at the Union Carbide plant, killing and injuring half a million people, destroying livestock and food sources, and polluting land and waterways. Lessons learned? Not hardly.
In May 2009, Bayer assured our government leaders that the Institute plant was safe. Our national leaders are now aware of the Bayer Institute plant's a similar record of safety violations, failure of monitoring systems, leaks of MIC into the community, and an explosion- but with two fatalities. They have been educated that the Institute plant has twice the MIC and are aware of the dangers posed by the storage of deadly MIC.
Institute is a 120 ton ticking time bomb so volatile it can be detonated by one drop of water or a metal filing. Institute is allowed by our government to hid its chemical "weapon" behind our national security laws while they assure us that the MIC stored in West Virginia is safe. Unfortunately, awareness and education do not influence Washington, money does.
Warnings ignored
In "Five Minutes Past Midnight in Bhopal", authors Dominique LaPierre and Javier Moro give us a history lesson of the events that led to explosion and leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) stored at the Union Carbide plant.
Two years prior to the disaster, journalist Rajkumar Keswani published warnings about the MIC storage, that the Union Carbide plant was a sitting on top of a “volcano.” A few months before the blast, a chemist from the Bayer plant in Germany warned the chemical plantengineer that storing 63 tons of MIC was a “real atomic bomb right in the middle of the plant.” Eager to profit from the Bhopal plant, Institute ignored the warnings, resulting in the worst industrial tragedy in history.
Toxic Injuries
Imprinted on my mind was LaPierre and Moro’s dramatic detail, and education of the carnage wreaked from MIC. Twice as heavy as air, the poisonous cloud blanketed the ground, seeping into homes, schools, places of worship. Thousands ran through the streets trying to escape the searing, suffocating chemicals.
Ripping their clothing off their burning skin, many dropped dead, others lay dying in pools of their own vomit in the roads and alleyways. A medic bent over a child to give mouth -to-mouth resuscitation. The gas was so deadly, that after inhaling the air from the child’s lungs, he was the next to die.
Tortured bodies
LaPierre and Moro describe the condition of bodies. Two doctors climbed over hundreds of dead piled up at the medical clinic. The bodies appeared tortured before dying- “inflamed eyes about to burst. . Fetid, foul breath from the mouths oozing blood streaked froth."
An entire family wiped out, the parents and their six children lay sprawled on the ground, their eyes bulging, "the youngest had died sucking their thumbs.” A little girl, her carefully braided hair adorned with marigolds, lay among the dead, her eyes rolled back into her head, her mouth twisted, set into dreadful grimace.
Bodies were tortured even after death.C2 “Under pressure from the gases produced by the chemical decomposition of MIC,” writes the authors, “the corpses were subject to strange twitches. Here an arm stretched itself out, there a leg.” A fleeing driver, blinded by the chemicals, remains haunted by the sound of human bones crushing beneath his tires.
Bottle-necked bureaucracy
I am outraged that our elected officials and government leaders, bloated from benefits paid by giant chemical companies and bottle-necked by their own bureaucracy, pretend not to be aware, not to be educated about the dangers and potential for death and injury by MIC at Institute.
The stockpile of MIC at the Institute plant is reported to be more than twice as large as that the Bhopal plant, and a record of safety just as bad. A disaster of that magnitude could destroy millions of American lives, kill major food sources, pollute large portions of our land, ruin major waterways and total our struggling economy.
So great is the danger that under today’s laws, a foreign-owned company like Bayer, threatening lives of millions innocent American men, women, and children with one of the most deadly industrial chemicals on earth should be treated as an act of terrorism. Where is the outrage and historical swift action of our government officials?
How many more "toxic injury awareness" lessons do we need? Perhaps our leaders are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history because they are so distracted by international issues it fails to notice the danger lurking in its own backyard.
Write your U. S. Congressmen and government leaders and demand that our nation safely rid its communities of dangerous stockpiles of toxic chemicals, starting with storage of MIC at the Bayer CropScience plant.
* * *
Editor’s Note: A former teacher, Nancy Swan has had her commentaries n published in USA Today, Biloxi Sun Herald, Mobile Press Register, Memphis Commercial Appeal Jackson Mississippi Clarion Ledger, and HNN. She lives in a body damaged by methyl isocyanate. Despite warning labels on barrels and the history lesson from the tragedy in Bhopal, the Long Beach Mississippi school board allowed a roofing contractor to apply a spray on foam roofing and coating products during the school day. The chemicals contained various compounds of isocyanate, including methyl isocyanate and toluene diphenol isocyanate. After three days of exposure in October 1985, over two dozen children and teachers, including Mrs. Swan, were left with serious and permanent damage to respiratory and nervous systems.
Swan's soon to be published book, Toxic Justice, describes her metamorphosis from middle school teacher to ardent crusader for safer schools, environmental protection and judicial reform.
One of her editorials on judicial reform led to the conviction of half a dozen high profile attorneys and judges. Nancy Swan’s husband is a professional editorial cartoonist. Three of his cartoons were published alongside her commentaries. Her commentary on the hazards for corruption whistle-blowers is posted on Transparency International's Barometer 2009.
Nancy Swan is a supporter of Healthy Schools Network, Advisory Board vice president of POPULAR, Inc. a human rights organization. She also serves as Alabama Delegate leader for Amnesty International USA. She was been asked to be spokesperson and to participate in the EPA Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools program in the southeastern region.
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COMMENTARY: MIC storage at Institute, WV: A Ticking Bomb
By Nancy Swan
Special to Huntingtonnews.net
Twenty five governors, including West Virginia's Governor Joe Manchin, proclaimed May as Toxic Injury Awareness and Education Month. Following the explosion last August at the Bayer plant, Gov. Manchin introduced a bill to provide timely information to protect emergency workers, but there is no such legislation to protect residents. As a former teacher and victim of methyl isocyanate poisoning, I know that toxic injury awareness and education is worthless if its lessons are not learned and appropriate action not taken.
The first week in May, the refusal of Bayer CropScience to provide chemical safety records led the local news. Then on May 17th, the New York Times ran a benign sounding editorial, “Chemical Plant Safety.” The editorial wasn’t about plant safety; it was about unsafe conditions at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, where over a hundred tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC), one of the most deadly and toxic chemicals in the industry is being stored.
False assurances
The failed safety systems that led to the explosion at Bayer Institute plant is an ominous reminder to our national leaders of the lesson not learned from the disasterous leak of MIC at the Union Carbide plant. In 1984, India was so fearful and preoccupied with a downturn in the economy, climate change, and massive layoffs, that it failed to heed warnings about the danger of the MIC storage at the Union Carbide plant.
India's government officials, continued to placed their faith in foreign owned chemical giant in Institute, West Virginia. The Institute plant assured India that the storage tanks in Bhopal were safe, despite citations for safety violations, failure of monitoring systems, leaks of MIC into the community, an explosion and fatality
The Institute's assurances proved worthless. On December 2, 1984, a chain reaction exploded a tank of MIC at the Union Carbide plant, killing and injuring half a million people, destroying livestock and food sources, and polluting land and waterways. Lessons learned? Not hardly.
In May 2009, Bayer assured our government leaders that the Institute plant was safe. Our national leaders are now aware of the Bayer Institute plant's a similar record of safety violations, failure of monitoring systems, leaks of MIC into the community, and an explosion- but with two fatalities. They have been educated that the Institute plant has twice the MIC and are aware of the dangers posed by the storage of deadly MIC.
Institute is a 120 ton ticking time bomb so volatile it can be detonated by one drop of water or a metal filing. Institute is allowed by our government to hid its chemical "weapon" behind our national security laws while they assure us that the MIC stored in West Virginia is safe. Unfortunately, awareness and education do not influence Washington, money does.
Warnings ignored
In "Five Minutes Past Midnight in Bhopal", authors Dominique LaPierre and Javier Moro give us a history lesson of the events that led to explosion and leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) stored at the Union Carbide plant.
Two years prior to the disaster, journalist Rajkumar Keswani published warnings about the MIC storage, that the Union Carbide plant was a sitting on top of a “volcano.” A few months before the blast, a chemist from the Bayer plant in Germany warned the chemical plantengineer that storing 63 tons of MIC was a “real atomic bomb right in the middle of the plant.” Eager to profit from the Bhopal plant, Institute ignored the warnings, resulting in the worst industrial tragedy in history.
Toxic Injuries
Imprinted on my mind was LaPierre and Moro’s dramatic detail, and education of the carnage wreaked from MIC. Twice as heavy as air, the poisonous cloud blanketed the ground, seeping into homes, schools, places of worship. Thousands ran through the streets trying to escape the searing, suffocating chemicals.
Ripping their clothing off their burning skin, many dropped dead, others lay dying in pools of their own vomit in the roads and alleyways. A medic bent over a child to give mouth -to-mouth resuscitation. The gas was so deadly, that after inhaling the air from the child’s lungs, he was the next to die.
Tortured bodies
LaPierre and Moro describe the condition of bodies. Two doctors climbed over hundreds of dead piled up at the medical clinic. The bodies appeared tortured before dying- “inflamed eyes about to burst. . Fetid, foul breath from the mouths oozing blood streaked froth."
An entire family wiped out, the parents and their six children lay sprawled on the ground, their eyes bulging, "the youngest had died sucking their thumbs.” A little girl, her carefully braided hair adorned with marigolds, lay among the dead, her eyes rolled back into her head, her mouth twisted, set into dreadful grimace.
Bodies were tortured even after death.C2 “Under pressure from the gases produced by the chemical decomposition of MIC,” writes the authors, “the corpses were subject to strange twitches. Here an arm stretched itself out, there a leg.” A fleeing driver, blinded by the chemicals, remains haunted by the sound of human bones crushing beneath his tires.
Bottle-necked bureaucracy
I am outraged that our elected officials and government leaders, bloated from benefits paid by giant chemical companies and bottle-necked by their own bureaucracy, pretend not to be aware, not to be educated about the dangers and potential for death and injury by MIC at Institute.
The stockpile of MIC at the Institute plant is reported to be more than twice as large as that the Bhopal plant, and a record of safety just as bad. A disaster of that magnitude could destroy millions of American lives, kill major food sources, pollute large portions of our land, ruin major waterways and total our struggling economy.
So great is the danger that under today’s laws, a foreign-owned company like Bayer, threatening lives of millions innocent American men, women, and children with one of the most deadly industrial chemicals on earth should be treated as an act of terrorism. Where is the outrage and historical swift action of our government officials?
How many more "toxic injury awareness" lessons do we need? Perhaps our leaders are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history because they are so distracted by international issues it fails to notice the danger lurking in its own backyard.
Write your U. S. Congressmen and government leaders and demand that our nation safely rid its communities of dangerous stockpiles of toxic chemicals, starting with storage of MIC at the Bayer CropScience plant.
* * *
Editor’s Note: A former teacher, Nancy Swan has had her commentaries n published in USA Today, Biloxi Sun Herald, Mobile Press Register, Memphis Commercial Appeal Jackson Mississippi Clarion Ledger, and HNN. She lives in a body damaged by methyl isocyanate. Despite warning labels on barrels and the history lesson from the tragedy in Bhopal, the Long Beach Mississippi school board allowed a roofing contractor to apply a spray on foam roofing and coating products during the school day. The chemicals contained various compounds of isocyanate, including methyl isocyanate and toluene diphenol isocyanate. After three days of exposure in October 1985, over two dozen children and teachers, including Mrs. Swan, were left with serious and permanent damage to respiratory and nervous systems.
Swan's soon to be published book, Toxic Justice, describes her metamorphosis from middle school teacher to ardent crusader for safer schools, environmental protection and judicial reform.
One of her editorials on judicial reform led to the conviction of half a dozen high profile attorneys and judges. Nancy Swan’s husband is a professional editorial cartoonist. Three of his cartoons were published alongside her commentaries. Her commentary on the hazards for corruption whistle-blowers is posted on Transparency International's Barometer 2009.
Nancy Swan is a supporter of Healthy Schools Network, Advisory Board vice president of POPULAR, Inc. a human rights organization. She also serves as Alabama Delegate leader for Amnesty International USA. She was been asked to be spokesperson and to participate in the EPA Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools program in the southeastern region.
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