Posted on 01/22/2020 9:13:19 PM PST by BenLurkin
No injuries were reported but several dozen plant employees were evacuated. Authorities also recommended evacuations for people living or working within 6 miles of the plant and went door to door advising them to leave.
About 70 people were evacuated, authorities said. People between 6 and 9 miles were urged to stay inside, close their doors and windows and turn off central air systems.
The leak was stopped in a couple of hours but the liquid had to be absorbed and the area had to be checked by hazardous materials crews for fumes. About 10 hours after the first report, fire officials confirmed the leak had been contained and lifted the recommendations of evacuations and sheltering in place.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
And the chemical was....
Acrolein
I managed to excerpt out the most important detail.
Exactly. That was my question too
Common Sense. Considered dangerous in certain areas of California, especially Sacramento and San Francisco.
Horrible reporting.
“Acrolein is highly toxic via all routes and is severely irritating to the eyes, mucous membranes, respiratory tract, and skin. Acrolein is highly flammable, can form explosive mixtures with air, and burns to produce irritating, corrosive and/or toxic gases”
Sounds nasty. On the plus side, it is not listed as a carcinogen.
Not a Union Carbide plant hopefully.
I’ve been to this plant. They manufacture Acrolein, very nasty stuff. IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) level is 2 parts per million. Very poisonous, very flammable. It is an aldehyde.
This was a small event and the regulators and the press over-reacted to it, though I’m not sure I blame them.
They better not have messed up my fruit juice
https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/docs/ERG2016.pdf
I don’t think I can get it to open to the specific page(s).
Interesting
The smell of burnt fat (as when cooking oil is heated to its smoke point) is caused by glycerol in the burning fat breaking down into acrolein.
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