In a state­ment, CSB Chair­per­son Vanes­sa Allen Suther­land called this ​“one of the most destruc­tive explo­sions ever inves­ti­gat­ed by the CSB.”

Near­ly three years after a cat­a­stroph­ic explo­sion and fire fueled by about 30 tons of fer­til­iz­er grade ammo­ni­um nitrate ripped through the West Fer­til­iz­er plant in West, Texas — killing 15 peo­ple, includ­ing 12 first respon­ders, and injur­ing more than 260 and caus­ing exten­sive com­mu­ni­ty dam­age — the Chem­i­cal Safe­ty Board (CSB) has released and unan­i­mous­ly approved its final report on the inci­dent. Pre­sent­ed at a pub­lic meet­ing in Waco, Texas on Jan­u­ary 28, the CSB’s report found that ​“lim­it­ed reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight, poor haz­ard aware­ness, inad­e­quate emer­gency plan­ning and the prox­im­i­ty of the facil­i­ty to near­by homes and oth­er build­ings all led to the incident’s severity.”

The April 17, 2013, inci­dent caused wide­spread dam­age to more than 150 near­by build­ings, among them sev­er­al schools, an apart­ment com­plex where the destruc­tion killed two peo­ple and a nurs­ing home, a num­ber of whose res­i­dents were seri­ous­ly injured. Despite this dev­as­ta­tion, the CSB report finds that com­mu­ni­ties in Texas and else­where around the coun­try remain at risk for sim­i­lar disasters.

Accord­ing to the report, more than 1,300 facil­i­ties across the coun­try store fer­til­iz­er grade ammo­ni­um nitrate; 40 of those, which store more than 10,000 pounds of this mate­r­i­al, are in Texas, and near­ly half are locat­ed with­in half a mile of a school, nurs­ing home or hos­pi­tal. Eighty three per­cent of these facil­i­ties are with­in a quar­ter mile of a residence.

The final CSB report upholds what its pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion (which can be read below) found: that huge gaps in infor­ma­tion avail­able to both first respon­ders and the com­mu­ni­ty about the haz­ardous mate­r­i­al stored West Fer­til­iz­er plant con­tributed to the loss of life, injuries and dam­age. These gaps includ­ed the fail­ure of train­ing and ref­er­ence mate­r­i­al to inform emer­gency respon­ders about fer­til­iz­er grade ammo­ni­um nitrate’s poten­tial to explode in a fire.

The report also points to a ​“lack of ade­quate fed­er­al, state or local over­sight” on stor­age of fer­til­iz­er grade ammo­ni­um nitrate, includ­ing the fact that nei­ther the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) or the Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA) risk or process safe­ty man­age­ment pro­grams cov­er this explo­sive material.

“This trag­ic acci­dent should not have hap­pened,” said CSB Chair­per­son Suther­land in a state­ment released along with a video recon­struct­ing the incident.

Labor calls for stronger language

While the CSB takes fed­er­al, state and local author­i­ties to task for fail­ure to ade­quate man­age­ment of this high­ly haz­ardous mate­r­i­al, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for major unions says the report could have made stronger recommendations.

The CSB ​“report fails to make any spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tion to OSHA and EPA” on the need to ​“close the gap” in exist­ing haz­ardous chem­i­cals man­age­ment rules cur­rent­ly don’t apply to many ​“reac­tive chem­i­cals,” includ­ing ammo­ni­um nitrate and oth­ers that behave like it, said Eric Fru­min, health and safe­ty direc­tor of the union fed­er­a­tion Change to Win, whose mem­bers include the Inter­na­tion­al Broth­er­hood of Team­sters, Unit­ed Food and Com­mer­cial Work­ers Inter­na­tion­al Union, Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tion­al Union and Unit­ed Farm­work­ers of America.

Fru­min points out that the CSB has been aware of this gap for more than 20 years. ​“We have a huge prob­lem with many, many chem­i­cals of which ammo­ni­um nitrate is only one that is high­ly reac­tive — and that have caused dev­as­ta­tion in many cas­es,” he says. ​“There are many exam­ples of com­pa­nies not know­ing how dan­ger­ous this is and not tak­ing the right action because they’re not required to. It’s dis­ap­point­ing that the [CSB] board failed to address that issue when they issued this report.”

In fact, as the CSB itself point­ed out in its pre­lim­i­nary find­ings on the West Fer­til­iz­er dis­as­ter, OSHA con­sid­ered adding ammo­ni­um nitrate and oth­er high­ly reac­tive chem­i­cals to the list of sub­stances that require process safe­ty man­age­ment plans in the late 1990s but shelved the pro­pos­al in 2001. Although the CSB rec­om­mend­ed in 2002 that EPA and OSH include these chem­i­cals in safe­ty plan­ning, nei­ther agency has yet act­ed on this recommendation.

Fru­min also points to the fact that the effort to address risks posed by haz­ardous chem­i­cal facil­i­ties set in motion by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s Exec­u­tive Order 13650, issued in August 2013 in response to the West Fer­til­iz­er dis­as­ter, has also thus far failed to sub­stan­tive­ly or ful­ly address this issue.

The EPA, OSHA and the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobac­co, Firearms and Explo­sives have since issued an advi­so­ry on the safe han­dling and stor­age of ammo­ni­um nitrate. EPA has also pro­posed adding ammo­ni­um nitrate to the list of chem­i­cals that require a com­pa­ny using or stor­ing the mate­r­i­al to devel­op a risk man­age­ment plan, but that rule has not yet been final­ized.

Lit­tle progress since Pres­i­dent Obama’s exec­u­tive order

The exec­u­tive order direct­ed fed­er­al agen­cies, among them the EPA and OSHA, to improve the safe­ty of facil­i­ties that use and store haz­ardous chem­i­cals. While the work­ing group of agen­cies have issued sta­tus reports, most recent­ly in June 2015, acci­dents involv­ing haz­ardous chem­i­cals con­tin­ue to occur with alarm­ing fre­quen­cy. In the first month of 2016 alone, there have been at least two dozen such inci­dents that have injured and hos­pi­tal­ized dozens of peo­ple and killed at least three.

This sug­gests that lit­tle may have changed sub­stan­tive­ly since Decem­ber 2014 when the Sen­ate Envi­ron­ment and Pub­lic Works Com­mit­tee held a hear­ing review­ing progress made by fed­er­al agen­cies since Pres­i­dent Obama’s Exec­u­tive Order. At that point, Sen. Bar­bara Box­er (D‑Calif.) not­ed, ​“In the 602 days since the West, Texas tragedy there have been 355 chem­i­cal acci­dents result­ing in 79 deaths and 1500 hos­pi­tal­iza­tions,” or about one inci­dent involv­ing haz­ardous chem­i­cals every oth­er day.

This num­ber also coin­cides with EPA’s esti­mate of ​“approx­i­mate­ly 150 cat­a­stroph­ic acci­dents” per year at facil­i­ties con­sid­ered ​“high risk” because they use or store haz­ardous chem­i­cals and are locat­ed in pop­u­lat­ed areas.

Green­peace tox­i­cs cam­paign leg­isla­tive direc­tor Rick Hind points out that the NGO Coali­tion to Pre­vent Chem­i­cal Dis­as­ters has been meet­ing and cor­re­spond­ing with EPA over these issues for years, dat­ing back to before the West, Texas dis­as­ter. Call­ing the EPA’s actions to date ​“dis­ap­point­ing,” Hind said, ​“It is now up to Oba­ma to live up to his promis­es and lega­cy on chem­i­cal plant dis­as­ter prevention.”

Hind explained that some indus­tries, like waste­water treat­ment, have begun to shift away from their use of high­ly haz­ardous chlo­rine and that when it comes to ammo­ni­um nitrate, it now rep­re­sents but a tiny and shrink­ing frac­tion of types of fer­til­iz­er used. This, he said, shows that elim­i­nat­ing risks posed by stor­ing large amounts of high­ly reac­tive chem­i­cal is not impossible.

“The CSB’s goal is to ensure that no one else be killed or injured due to a lack of aware­ness of haz­ardous chem­i­cals in their com­mu­ni­ties,” said CSB Chair­per­son Suther­land. ​“If adopt­ed, the Board’s rec­om­men­da­tions can help pre­vent dis­as­ters like the one in West, Texas.”

As haz­ardous chem­i­cal inci­dents con­tin­ue on an almost dai­ly basis, those con­cerned may want to keep an eye on the West Fer­til­iz­er Explo­sion and Fire rec­om­men­da­tions tal­ly the CSB has post­ed on its web­site. As of Feb­ru­ary 1, 2016, 100 per­cent of the report’s 19 open rec­om­men­da­tions have not been ful­filled. Mean­while, between Thurs­day night when the CSB board approved the report and Mon­day morn­ing, the CSB record­ed two more inci­dents involv­ing release of haz­ardous chemicals.