From Dan Kennedy, the mockery that the national and state governments have made of environmental protection hits home:
Environmental regulators never inspected hazardous materials storage practices at the small Danvers chemical plant that exploded last week because the state and federal governments focus their enforcement efforts on larger facilities.
There are 15,000 companies in Massachusetts that produce small amounts of hazardous waste, and fewer than 2 percent — between 100 and 200 — are inspected each year by the state Department of Environmental Protection , an agency official said. In contrast, 20 percent of the roughly 400 companies that generate large amounts of waste are inspected annually.
… Small quantity generators include auto body shops, dry cleaners, photo processors, and printing facilities.
The article says that essentially the federal EPA has heretofore prevented the state Department of Environmental Protection from inspecting smaller hazardous waste generators.
We hear again and again about how the environment ranks pretty low down the list of voters’ motivations for choosing one person over another. That stands to reason … until it’s your house that gets blown up when the local dry cleaning biz goes kaboom.
Isn’t it time to look at environmental protection as a simple matter of law enforcement? And that skimping on enforcing the law simply isn’t an acceptable option, any more than letting people get away with murder? Oh wait … we do that too, don’t we.
Here’s hoping that Deval Patrick will be a law-and-order liberal.
It’s important to be fair, which means not just go after the worst of the worst.
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That being said, here’s what I’d want to know: * For an arbitrary definition of “large”, what is the total risk of a large failure vs. a small failure. In other words, what happens if a large petrochemical plant has a massive failure, vs. what happens if an autobody shop has a massive failure. * What is the expected amount of total damage per year from all large shops? All small shops? * What is the expected reduction in risk if we inspect shop type A? Type B? Both for that particular plant, and also overall (word gets around)?
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These are the sorts of questions that should be answered before specific inspection policy should be created. After all, if the government isn’t trying to get the most bang for its buck (while being ethical and fair), it might not be serving the people as best it can.
The plant was in compliance with every single law. The purpose of inspection is to check compliance so I am not sure we would have been able to prevent anything, at least as the facts stand now. We will see what the investigation turns up because perhaps inspection would have prevented something. The premise here is that inspection would have prevent this and there is simply no justification for that.
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What is more disturbing to me is the fact that many, many of the companies neighbors had NO CLUE that they were living next to a chemical producer. I find that unconscionable on so many levels from general health hazards to what is now the obvious — an accident that results in significant property damage and should it have been just a few hours, later the likely loss of life.
The plant was in compliance with every single law.
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Really? Says who? Before what investigations have happened or afterward? And all laws, or just the ones relevant to not blowing the place up?
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The fact is, you simply can not make that claim. The best you could possibly do is: “They hadn’t had any accidents in the past, had passed all prior inspections, and the investigation hasn’t turned up any violations yet” — and you could only say that if all of those things were true (of which, I have no idea).
But in the same news report yesterday morning in which I heard that there was no oversight (nor none required) they also reported that CAI was complying with all applicable laws. So I am not making the claim that they were applying with the laws, the news was, and again, I don’t always trust the news.
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The point that I was trying to raise is that even with regular inspections (which were not required by law) there is no guarantee this tragedy could have been prevented. However if people realized that they were living next door to a potential explosion perhaps other precautions could have been taken. Why was CAI allowed to move in next to a residential area?
Absolutely, businesses should be inspected and laws enforced, but conceivably that plant could have passed an inspection the day before the explosion. But a gas line rupture (an early theory I heard) could still blow the place up.
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The point is, any business in a residential setting should be examined from the viewpoint, if this place blows today, who will be impacted? Doesn’t matter if they do everything right. Doesn’t matter if the stuff isn’t likely to blow by itself. A gas leak, a vandal, anything could happen. If possible, there should be a buffer zone around all such potentially hazardous sites.
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Frankly, it’s the small ones that have the highest risk because they are tucked into densely populated neighborhoods. And they are the least likely to have the profit margin that allows them the luxury of complying with every regulation. In buying a house, I avoided anywhere near a gas station, restaurant, rail line, retaining wall, bottom of a hill/cliff, etc.
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While getting my car inspected this year at a local gas station, the owner complained about EPA guy doing his inspection of the tanks and pumps. He was not happy. “It always means money.”
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In my town, a school abuts a tire factory. I don’t know that tires are inherently dangerous, but I’m sure there’s something in there that could blow. Does anyone have a plan? I don’t have kids in the school, otherwise I’d sure ask.
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But, as the Globe article points out, who has the money to monitor every business?
We’ve all known of unexpected flooding, forest fires, hurricanes. Any good that comes out of them is to learn to lessen the impact of that event happening next time. I still find it hard to believe that no one was killed. My mind races to the LNG platform in Everett. A site that could rival the Halifax disaster of ninety years ago.
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Is the Everett site safe? Probably. Probably the Danvers site was safe. Until it exploded.
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I understand that powerful political forces are at work to prevent opening other LNG sites in less densely populated areas. A Google map shows housing, schools and even the Massachusetts computing center within any danger area. Has our impotent elected officials dropped the ball on this, too?