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From: "Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety" <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines from Google (8 articles)
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2016 08:52:49 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: FBBB5A40-DF8F-4CE5-B08D-FB625E2778F7**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Friday, November 4, 2016 at 8:52:38 AM
A membership benefit of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas
Table of Contents (8 articles)
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY IN TOXIC CHEMICAL RELEASE
Tags: us_CO, public, discovery, environmental, toxics
ADVISORS WARN NASA ABOUT SPACEX PLANS TO FUEL ROCKETS WITH PEOPLE ON BOARD
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical
CHEMICAL REACTION PROMPTS HAZMAT RESPONSE
Tags: us_MA, industrial, fire, response, epoxy, resin
PEPPER SPRAY OR CHEMICAL SUBSTANCE INHALED ON SCHOOL BUS SENDS 15 TO HOSPITAL
Tags: us_DC, education, release, injury, pepper_spray
INDIAN ROADSIDE REFUSE FIRES PRODUCE TOXIC RAINBOW
Tags: India, public, discovery, environmental, toxics, waste
SUNCOR ADMITS TO RELEASING 150 TIMES THE LIMIT OF SULFUR DIOXIDE
Tags: us_CO, industrial, follow-up, environmental, petroleum, sulfur_dioxide
UPDATE: FIREFIGHTER PPE CLEANING INITIATIVE
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
CONTROLLED EXPLOSIONS CARRIED OUT IN SCHOOLS AFTER A-LEVEL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL STORED INCORRECTLY
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, discovery, response, dinitrophenylhydrazine, time-sensitive
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CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY IN TOXIC CHEMICAL RELEASE
Tags: us_CO, public, discovery, environmental, toxics
DENVER (AP) ‰?? Military and civilian authorities are investigating whether any laws were broken in the unexplained discharge of 150,000 gallons of wastewater tainted with toxic chemicals at an Air Force base in Colorado.
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are looking into the release of the contaminated wastewater at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, officials said Tuesday.
The chemicals flowed into the city‰??s wastewater treatment system but didn‰??t get into its drinking water, officials said.
The discharge was discovered on Oct. 12 and announced six days later.
Air Force officials have scheduled a news conference Wednesday to discuss the incident and other issues surrounding the chemicals, called perfluorinated compounds or PFCs.
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ADVISORS WARN NASA ABOUT SPACEX PLANS TO FUEL ROCKETS WITH PEOPLE ON BOARD
Tags: us_TX, industrial, follow-up, environmental, other_chemical
Members of NASA Space Station Advisory Committee criticized the SpaceX refueling plans for manned rockets, labeling it as a ‰??hazardous operation.‰??
The same NASA advisers had warned the company earlier this year, months before the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded in September. Currently, SpaceX intends on fueling the Rockets with astronauts already aboard the capsule located at the top of the rocket. The plan was criticized by the entirety of the committee through a letter sent by its chairman Air Force Lt. General Thomas Stafford. So far, NASA has not emitted an official statement.
The test involving one of the used Falcon 9 rockets took place at SpaceX-owned McGregor test center in South Texas. Image Credit: PC Mag
The presence of fuel increases the risk of explosions
SpaceX did explain that their refueling process is optimized in a way that ‰??it minimizes the duration and number of personnel exposed to the hazards of launching a rocket.‰?? Although this may be the case, it is a common practice for space agencies to avoid refueling equipment with people on board. This is so if there‰??s an accident, the least amount of human loss is attained.
SpaceX rockets need to use cold fuel to reach maximum efficiency, due to it occupying less volume. This makes it so astronauts do not have enough time to prepare for launch before the fuel warms up, forcing them to remain aboard during the fueling process. But the Rockets do have an emergency evacuation system that would expel the transport capsule, so it is far from danger.
Each accident is two steps backward
Apparently, the explosion of the Falcon 9 rocket that occurred back on September was due to faulty fueling procedures. Experts believe that a helium tank inside the rocket‰??s booster was the primary cause of the accident. A chemical explosion ensued and destroyed the rocket and the satellite it was carrying. Later, SpaceX officers stated that the probable cause was operational rather than the design of the rocket‰??s booster equipment.
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CHEMICAL REACTION PROMPTS HAZMAT RESPONSE
Tags: us_MA, industrial, fire, response, epoxy, resin
NORTH ANDOVER ‰?? A chemical reaction Wednesday afternoon at Atlee electronics hardware manufacturing company in North Andover caused four employees to evacuate and prompted a response from a regional hazmat team.
At 12:39 p.m., the North Andover fire received a call for a chemical reaction causing smoke inside 10 Bayfield Drive, the building that houses Atlee, part of the business park off of Route 114.
Fire chief William McCarthy said the reaction was caused by a common epoxy resin hardening process gone wrong.
"They mixed larger quantities than normal and it started to overheat and react, and they developed a smoke condition in the building," he said.
The epoxy resin is normally used as a liquid that is poured over a circuit board or other similar electronic hardware and then hardens.
When the fire department arrived, McCarthy said the four people who were inside the building at the time of the incident had already exited, with no injuries.
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PEPPER SPRAY OR CHEMICAL SUBSTANCE INHALED ON SCHOOL BUS SENDS 15 TO HOSPITAL
Tags: us_DC, education, release, injury, pepper_spray
About 15 Montgomery County students were taken to the hospital Wednesday after officials said the students may have inhaled pepper spray or some other substance on a school bus, authorities said.
Officials believe a student sprayed a substance on the bus as it sat in the driveway of Watkins Mill Elementary School, a spokeswoman said. After the 3:45 p.m. incident, the bus did not leave the parking lot and all of the students were evaluated, said Gboyinde Onijala, a spokeswoman for the school district.
Fire and rescue officials thought the substance was pepper spray, but Onijala said the substance has not been confirmed.
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INDIAN ROADSIDE REFUSE FIRES PRODUCE TOXIC RAINBOW
Tags: India, public, discovery, environmental, toxics, waste
First toxicity measurements of roadside garbage fires in India highlight the unhealthy nature of a common practice.
Samples of smoke particles emanating from burning roadside trash piles in India have shown that their chemical composition and toxicityare very bad for human health.
The wide variation found between sites by a Duke University study, however, does offer insights about how to mitigate the worst effects of the common practice.
‰??From our tests, we found that somebody standing near one of these fires is getting a dose of toxins 1000 times greater than they would from the ambient air,‰?? said Michael Bergin, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University, and an author on the paper published September 20, 2016, in the journal Atmospheric Environment. ‰??To put it another way, a person would only need to breathe these particles for a minute to get an entire day‰??s worth of hazardous particulate matter.‰??
Of the nearly 2 billion tons of garbage produced worldwide each year, nearly half of it is burned for disposal, according to some estimates. While much of this total is burned in large collection and disposal sites away from heavily populated areas, many cities and towns do not have the infrastructure in place to collect waste--especially in India.
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SUNCOR ADMITS TO RELEASING 150 TIMES THE LIMIT OF SULFUR DIOXIDE
Tags: us_CO, industrial, follow-up, environmental, petroleum, sulfur_dioxide
COMMERCE CITY, COLO. - In a letter to the state sent last week, the Suncor oil refinery in admitted it released more than the reportable limit of sulfur dioxide when power went out at the plant back on October 14.
At the time, the company said the orange cloud was not hazardous. And it still insists the same in that letter, ‰??there are no known or anticipated acute or chronic health risks associated with the release, and there is no need.‰??
But in that letter, Suncor also admits that it released more than the reportable quantity of 500 pounds of sulfur dioxide. It, in fact, estimates a total of 37.8 tons of sulfur dioxide was released. That‰??s more than 75,000 pounds.
"All I've seen is that there was this big emission,‰?? said Dr. Anthony Gerber, an air quality expert at National Jewish Health. ‰??But with my understanding with how we monitor air around these plants, I don't think its so easy to be definitive that there wasn't a health risk associated.‰??
‰??I don't think they have the data to definitely say we're 100 percent certain that there wasn't a plume or an area where they was a brief exceedance of this standard,‰?? he said.
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UPDATE: FIREFIGHTER PPE CLEANING INITIATIVE
Tags: public, discovery, environmental
As previously reported, the Fire Protection Research Foundation, the standards research arm of the National Fire Protection Association, is working toward a project that has the short title, "How Clean is Clean?"
This project is directed toward carrying out the research to understand the levels of contamination in firefighter clothing and how to properly clean that clothing. Here's an update on where the project is going and some of the initial findings.
To understand the significance of the project, it is necessary to recount the reasons that clothing contamination has become such a concern. For many, cancer in the fire service has reached a problem of epidemic proportions. Statistics clearly show that firefighters have an increased risk of certain cancers above the general population.
Part of that risk is due to structural fires exposing firefighters to combustion products that include myriad of carcinogens. Most fire service organizations have adopted an aggressive posture to address ways to reduce risk through proper hygiene and other practices.
Smoke particulates and fire gases easily penetrate turnout clothing and the clothing picks up and retains many of these contaminants. Thus, one way to mitigate continued exposure of firefighters to carcinogens and other harmful substances is to ensure that clothing is clean, a trend on the increase over the past two decades.
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CONTROLLED EXPLOSIONS CARRIED OUT IN SCHOOLS AFTER A-LEVEL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL STORED INCORRECTLY
Tags: United_Kingdom, laboratory, discovery, response, dinitrophenylhydrazine, time-sensitive
omb squads have been called to schools across the country following a Government warning over a lab chemical that can explode if not stored correctly.
At least a dozen schools have reportedly summoned military bomb disposal teams to conduct controlled explosions in recent days.
And some of the blasts have prompted complaints on social media from local residents, who said they were given no warning.
Last week, schools received a reminder from the advisory body Cleapss (the Consortium of Local Education Authorities for the Provision of Science Equipment) on how to correctly store the substance 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine.
The chemical, also known as 2,4-DNP, is used in A-level chemistry lessons and can become dangerous if it is allowed to dry out.
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