Texas Fertilizer Plant Disaster: Little Coverage, Much of It Wrong

[cali]

The West Fertilizer Co. explosion last week in West, Texas, took the lives of at least 14 and left scores injured and homeless. But the story was largely obscured by blanket coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. More than that, says legendary EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman, a guest on this week's CounterSpin, what coverage there was often obscured the real story. Here's a transcript of Kaufman's appearance:

CounterSpin: In his recent piece on the Nation's website, Greg Mitchell interviews you about the explosion in the town of West, Texas. Before we get to what’s missing in the coverage of the West disaster, tell us what the media is reporting.


<snip>


Both situations are frightening but what's more frightening is that the terrorists seem to be winning the war of the TV coverage. But there are thousands more people harmed and killed because of lax law enforcement of dangerous industries. The fertilizer industry is a dangerous industry.

CS: But you're saying that this fertilizer explosion wasn't just a matter of some regulatory oversight. You claim in Greg Mitchell’s piece that there's perhaps criminal activity here.

<snip>

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/04/26/texas-fertilizer-plant-disaster-little-coverage-much-of-it-wrong/

[Buzz Clik]

1. Ugh. This is going to be a difficult read:

CounterSpin: In his recent piece on the Nation's website, Greg Mitchell interviews you about the explosion in the town of West, Texas. Before we get to what’s missing in the coverage of the West disaster, tell us what the media is reporting.

Hugh Kaufman: The media is reporting the case as if it's some sort of an industrial accident, when in fact the town of west Texas is blown off the face of the earth.

Why is this ridiculous hyperbole necessary? The reality of the situation is bad enough.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Here is an excellent job of reporting from Chris Hayes:

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/25/bush-and-the-west-explosion-the-untold-story-of-deregulating-chemical-plants/

No conspiracy theories, no misleading misinformation. He talks about the history of the regulations surrounding the disaster.

[DevonRex]

2. Thanks.

Good article. I shared it.

[spanone]

4. You know who the largest owner of fertilizer business in the world is?

HK: The Koch brothers. So you've got the Koch brothers, who are the largest business owners of the business, lobbying — using their efforts — to deregulate even more of the fertilizer business. And not have everyone knows how dangerous it is. You have all of that power coming at you, especially when you can make unlimited campaign contributions. So unless the public knows something is wrong, you've got nothing to countervail that. I mean, the Koch brothers, in many ways, are more powerful than the president of the United States.

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/04/26/texas-fertilizer-plant-disaster-little-coverage-much-of-it-wrong/

[UTUSN]

5. O.K., so not *just* Rethug de-regulation/lack of inspection: split guilt with criminal owners nt

[GeorgeGist]

6. 'America needs towns like West'

President Obama.

[KoKo]

7. Thanks for posting this...it was an excellent read.

I had given up on there being more coverage of the Texas Explosion. I hope this gets legs and something is done about it. Obama did go to the memorial and I hope he realizes that he has some power to keep after it with the EPA. If he's been told the truth....that is.

[Igel]

8. Don't know if West, TX was incorporated.

If not, note that Texas counties have no zoning authority.

That limits a lot of what could have been done. Most areas would have zoning restrictions keeping residential and industrial property from being check-and-jowl.

It's unclear that any regulations that had been broken would have reduced the amount of fertilizer or NH3 kept there. The regs I've seen cited as broken are require reporting information to the DHS and monitoring amounts. Not restricting amounts or ensuring that fail-safe and foolproof safety precautions are in place. (Mostly because there aren't any. The presumption that every accident is attributable to a lack of regulation is just crazy. Some accidents just are accidents; others are violations of regulations; others are due to problems with the non-omniscience of the regulators.)