Chemical plant safetyPreventing a Bhopal-like catastrophe in New Jersey

There is a two-mile stretch in eastern New Jersey, from Newark Airport to Port Elizabeth, where many large chemical facilities are located, a stretch which terrorism experts have dubbed, “The most dangerous two miles in America.”

Other parts of the state are not much safer.

New Jersey is home to ninety facilities which produce and store large quantities of highly toxic chemicals — enough to cause a disaster similar to the incident which occurred in Paulsboro, New Jersey in November 2012. In the Paulsboro incident, a Conrailtrain carrying more than twelve tons of vinyl chloride derailed and spilled its toxic load while crossing Mantua Creek into Paulsboro. A highly toxic cloud of cancer-causing chemicals wafted over the borough, forcing residents to stay indoors and businesses to close. The long-term impact of the exposure of the area’s residents to toxic chemical is yet to be determined

The Times of Trenton reported that three Facilities in New Jersey — Solvay Solexis in West Deptford, Dupont’s Chamber Works in Deepwater, and Paulsboro Refining in Greenwich Township —  have enough toxic chemicals stored in their facilities to put at risk at least two million people if a disaster were to occur.

A  superstorm or terrorist attack could doom millions of people around southern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania to a Bhopal, 1984-like fate  if either of these facilities and their storage tanks were  affected.

NJ.com notes that other facilities with large quantities of toxic chemicals include the Ferro Delaware River Plant in Logan, CVC Specialty Chemicals in Maple Shade, State Metal Industries in Camden, and Bridor Inc. in Vineland.

Experts say that preventing potential disasters requires the use of   safer chemical substances and the adoption of more secure production and storage processes. Businesses, however, have been slow to invest in alternatives and government policies have not been enforced. Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey governor and Environmental Protection Agency chief under George W. Bush, last April urged the EPA to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to enforce stricter safety standards on chemical facilities vulnerable to accidents or terrorist attacks. “I cannot understand why we have not seen some action when the consequences of something happening are so potentially devastating,” Whitman said in a teleconference which included representatives of labor and environmental groups. 

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), under former governor Jon Corzine, adopted regulations to reduce the risk of chemical disasters. The regulations require facilities with large amounts of toxic chemicals to: identify feasible alternatives for adopting inherently safer technology (IST, the technical name for chemicals which are less toxic or volatile), commit to a schedule for implementation, and provide a justification if claiming that a particular alternative is not feasible.

A new study, Failure to Act, published by the N. J. Work Environment Council (WEC) and fifteen labor, firefighter, and environmental organizations, sayst that  Governor Chris Christie has failed actively to enforce the regulations. Chemical facilities are required to file a report notifying their compliance with the regulations, but half of the applicable facilities have failed to report by using regulatory loopholes; moreover,  Christie has failed to provide the DEP with enough personnel to review the filed reports.

Typically, in the aftermath of major disasters, a blue ribbon panel is created to  review preventative measures that could have been taken before the disaster. Security experts say that there is no need to wait for a post-disaster blue ribbon panel investigation to know that preventing a Bhopal-like catastrophe in New Jersey, caused by  a major chemical accident, can be avoided if the sensible preventative measures issued by  Jon Corzine’s DEP, are adopted now.