TEXAS CITY, Tex. – After 4,000 people were evacuated as a result of a leak of hydrofluoric acid from a refinery, questions are still being asked about potential hazards here and in other cities where the same chemical is used. Those questions center both on the long-term effects on those exposed to the Oct. 30 […]
If the 1988 Legislature is serious about reducing Florida’s lung cancer cases caused by radon gas, it will toss out the tainted report from a committee of special interests and concentrate on recommendations by Gloria Rains, a Manatee County environmentalist and expert on the radon hazard. Mrs. Rains recently stood alone against the industries that […]
Fifty-eight U.S. oil refineries, including three in the Los Angeles area, are using a potentially lethal chemical that could result in a Bhopal-like disaster threatening as many as 12 million people across the country, a Washington-based environmental group has warned. Fred Millar of the Environmental Policy Institute issued the warning three years after the Bhopal […]
Hydrogen fluoride could be America’s Bhopal gas, according to an environmental group and an Energy Department physicist studying the behavior of hazardous chemicals when they are spilled. The pair on Thursday likened the threat posed by the chemical to that of methyl isocyanate, which leaked from Union Carbide’s Bhopal, India, plant in December 1984 and […]
TEXAS CITY, Tex., Oct. 31 – Sixty-six people were seriously injured and 3,000 residents fled their homes Friday after a leaking tank at an oil refinery sent up a cloud of toxic acid vapor. Workers today pumped the leaking hydrofluoric acid through a two-inch hose into two connecting tank cars at the Marathon Petroleum Company […]
TEXAS CITY, Tex. – A crane dropped its load onto a pipe at an oil refinery Friday, unleashing a hydrofluoric acid cloud that forced the evacuation of at least 2,000 people and sent more than 100 others to hospitals, officials said. Workers at Marathon Oil Co. sprayed water into the vapor cloud Friday night in […]
PHILADELPHIA – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has charged Armco Inc. with chronic violations of its national pollutant discharge elimination system (Npdes) permit at its Butler, Pa., plant. The lawsuit asks for $ 10,000 a day in penalties for each day of violations that occurred prior to Feb. 4, 1987, and $ 25,000 for each […]
INVERNESS – Soil beneath Inverness Middle School has higher than normal levels of a radioactive element called radium, which caused the high levels of the cancer-causing gas found in the school last summer, recent tests show. The tests of soil taken from just under the school’s floor revealedlevels of radium as high as three times […]
INVERNESS – New buildings along U.S. 41 and State Road 200 would be covered by proposed regulations designed to protect residents from cancer-causing radon gas. The area that would be included in the ordinance includes about 32,000 acres – or 7 percent of the land in Citrus County, according to federal soil scientist Paul Pilny. […]
A funny thing happened while a citizens’ committee was drafting recommendations to the Legislature on how Florida should deal with the public heath hazard caused by radon gas. Suddenly, the powerful phosphate, home building and real estate industries not only agreed to propose a state building code to prevent cancer-causing radon from invading homes; they […]
