Workers die in "mushroom clouds"

Not only were both of these disasters preventable, but the factors that caused both explosions had been subjects of Chemical Safety Board regulatory recommendations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), recommendations ignored by the agency — with tragic consequences.

On Jan. 3, 2008, the CSB issued a preliminary report on the T2 explosion, concluding that “preliminary findings indicate that the accident occurred as a result of a runaway chemical reaction during the production of a gasoline additive.”

Reactive hazards were nothing new. Following a number of deadly explosions resulting from runaway chemical reactions, the CSB issued a report on these hazards in 2002. The report identified 167 serious incidents in the United States involving uncontrolled chemical reactivity from January 1980 to June 2001. Forty-eight of the incidents resulted in a total of 108 fatalities.

The board found that “reactive incidents are a significant chemical safety problem,” and OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard “has significant gaps in coverage” of these hazards. The board unanimously recommended that OSHA amend the PSM “to achieve more comprehensive control.”