Forensic mappers work the crater at the site of the fire and explosion in West, Texas, on Wednesday, April 24. The plant run by West Fertilizer Co. in the small Texas town exploded on Wednesday, April 17, killing 14 people, most of them emergency responders. Dozens were injured.
(CNN) -- The fertilizer blamed for the massive explosion that devastated a Texas town in April was kept in wooden bins, in a wooden building, with no sprinklers nearby.
And that fell within the existing safety rules for handling ammonium nitrate, a "patchwork" of regulations, recommendations and guidance "that has many large holes," the head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board told a Senate committee Thursday.
The federal agency hasn't found any regulations "that prohibit or discourage many of the factors that likely contributed" to the April 17 explosion in West, Texas, the board's chairman, Rafael Moure-Eraso, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
A fire at the West Fertilizer Company led to an ammonium nitrate explosion that devastated the small town south of Dallas and killed 15 people, most of them firefighters and paramedics. The blast showed up on seismographs as a small earthquake and flattened or damaged dozens of homes, two schools and a nursing home nearby.
Giant crater marks Texas blast site
West, TX resident: We are resilient
"Facilities like West fall outside the existing process safety standards, which were developed in the 1990s," Moure-Eraso said.
Sprinklers aren't required until a company is storing 2,500 tons of ammonium nitrate, he said. And while industry groups have recommended fire safety standards, Texas has no statewide fire codes and most of its counties can't adopt their own.
"So at West, these fire code provisions were strictly voluntary, and West Fertilizer had not volunteered," he said.
Ammonium nitrate is a widely used fertilizer with a notorious reputation as an explosive. The bomb used to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, was made mostly ammonium nitrate.
Moure-Eraso said the Chemical Safety Board urged the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 to require non-combustible storage bins for reactive chemicals like ammonium nitrate, but the EPA hasn't done that. The committee's chairwoman, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, said she will be pressuring the EPA to enact those rules.
"That was a very prescient call, and it didn't happen," Boxer told Barry Breen, the head of the EPA's emergency response arm. The EPA's current guidance for handling ammonium ntirate dates back to 1997, "and I feel that EPA has to step up to the plate here and do a lot more."
Breen said that guidance "is posted on our website now and continues to be vital." And he told Boxer the EPA is studying "a number of potential policy options" in response to the West disaster, but he wouldn't say when those steps would be taken.
"In order to establish that time frame, we need to understand that issue better, and that's what we're doing now," he said.
West Fertilizer was covered under federal workplace safety rules for handling ammonium nitrate, Sam Mannan, a chemical engineering professor at Texas A&M University, told the committee. If they had followed those rules, "My guess is the probability of this incident would have been almost none," he said.
But the last time the Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspected West Fertilizer was in 1985, when it fined the company $30 over its handling of anhydrous ammonia, another fertilizer it sold.
"Until we come up with a regime where we are doing the enforcement comprehensively, in a manner that yields good results, we're not going to accomplish anything. We just add another legislation that doesn't get enforced," Mannan said.
With a budget of $10.6 million and a current staff of 42, the Chemical Safety Board investigates chemical accidents and makes recommendations to prevent future ones. The board is also investigating the June 13 explosion at a chemical plant in Geismar, Louisiana, that killed two people and injured more than 100.
The agency has a lengthy backlog of cases and "no capacity at this point to undertake any new investigative work," he said.
West Fertilizer had been cited by federal regulators twice in the seven years before the blast, including a $5,250 fine for storing anhydrous ammonia in tanks that lacked the proper warning labels.
Since the explosion, Texas officials have announced plans for an online database that will allow residents to view local facilities that hold hazardous materials. Meanwhile, the town has sued the company that sold ammonium nitrate to West Fertilizer, arguing it "blindly" supplied the chemical to a firm that didn't handle it properly.
Loading weather data ...
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on April 24 search the bank of rail tracks for evidence at the site of the explosion.
Smoke billows into the sky immediately after the explosion at West Fertilizer Co. in West, Texas, on Wednesday, April 17, as captured by
The West Fertilizer Co. lies in ruins in West, Texas, on Thursday, April 18, the day after the accident.
The remains of an apartment complex lie on cars on April 18.
A deer head mount sits inside a car parked next to a apartment complex damaged in the explosion.
Search and rescue workers comb through what remains of a 50-unit apartment building, in foreground, and a nursing home on April 18.
The remains of a car sit in front of an apartment complex destroyed after the fertilizer plant blast.
A Valley Mills Fire Department firefighter walks the remains of an apartment complex next to the fertilizer plant on April 18.
Fire personnel check out the railroad tracks near the fertilizer plant on April 18.
Valley Mills Fire Department personnel view the railroad tracks near the fertilizer plant on April 18.
Smoke rises April 18 from the rubble of a house next to the fertilizer plant.
A railroad boxcar lies on its side near the plant on April 18.
A Texas State Trooper stops people from entering a neighborhood near the plant on April 18.
A chimney is the only part of a home left standing after Wednesday's explosion.
Search and rescue workers comb through what remains of a 50-unit apartment building on April 18.
Workers clean up shattered windows at a store in West, Texas, on April 18.
Debris litters the fields around a fertilizer plant on April 18, the day after the explosion. The blast damaged 50 to 60 homes in a five-block area, officials said.
This satellite image shows West, Texas, as captured on January 30, 2012. The fertilizer plant is on the right center of the photo, just northeast of the oval track of the town's middle school.
A sheriff's deputy comforts a woman at a command post on April 18.
Brandon Smith removes broken glass from the West Thrift Shop on Thursday.
Workers board up a furniture shop with shattered windows on Thursday.
Remains of a fertilizer plant burn in West early April 18.
Water is sprayed at the burning remains of the plant.
The deadly explosion leveled dozens of homes and damaged other buildings on April 18, including a school and nursing home, authorities said.
A vehicle is seen near the remains of the fertilizer plant on April 18.
With smoke rising in the distance, a law enforcement officer runs a checkpoint at the perimeter about half a mile from the plant on April 18.
Waco Police spokesman William Swanton speaks to reporters about the explosion on April 18.
Glass from blown-out windows lies shattered on the sidewalk and street after the blast on April 18.
Earth-moving equipment rolls through the downtown area in the middle of the night on April 18.
Shattered glass covers items in the front of a thrift store on April 18.
|