Just how egregious was Freedom Industries negligence?
Interesting comments following the Scientific American article ...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-dangerous-is-the-chemical-spilled-in-west-virginia
1. David Cummings
05:45 PM 1/10/14
State investigators discovered the material was leaking from the bottom of a storage tank, and had overwhelmed a concrete dike meant to serve as "secondary containment" around the tank, Dorsey said.
"That was going over the hill into the river," Dorsey said. "Apparently, it had been leaking for some time. We just don't know how long."
--from:
http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201401090044?page=2&build=cache
Sounds like a failure of management to me.
2. rkipling
06:34 PM 1/10/14
It is an unforgivable management failure unless someone sabotaged the tank, the containment dike and alarms.
Regular rounds should have discovered this problem even if alarms were sabotaged. Everyone in my company down to entry level employees understands the importance of proper hazardous material storage, containment, monitoring and use. They are tested on knowledge of the MSDS.
The containment volume should be sized to hold more than the entire contents of the tank. More than one alarm should have alerted employees to the problem. I could write pages upon pages of why this should never have happened. The CEO of this company should resign in shame along with everyone else in the chain of responsibility. We would fire anyone who allowed the conditions for this potential spill to exist under their responsibility. If we were buying an existing facility, the deal would not close and come under our management until an exhaustive safety review had been completed and appropriate fixes made.
The more I think about this the angrier I get. They have defamed the entire chemical industry and industry in general. Just unforgivable. Someone should see jail time.
Emphasis mine.
