'Death Cloud' Could Kill Millions of Americans Who Live in Oil Refinery 'Kill Zones,' ABC Frets
The latest hyped scare propaganda piece from serial fraudster and car bomber, Brian Ross. Ross was fired by NBC for blowing up fuel tanks on air in 1993 with planted explosives and telling the public the explosions were a GM flaw. Why is this crook still employed by a major network?
You can't trust the mainstream media!
By Alex Fitzsimmons | February 25, 2011 | 16:03
What do oil refineries and rental cars have in common? They will probably kill you, at least according to ABC's Brian Ross.
Ross is either bored with his job or just doesn't seem to care about frightening his viewers with exaggerated reports. But either way, ABC's chief investigative correspondent is breathing new life into the term yellow journalism.
Those who are familiar with Ross's work might notice an emerging pattern of sensationalism. The latest case studies concern oil refineries in Texas, which Ross's colleague described as the "toxic threat next door," and rental cars, which Ross himself cautioned are like "a consumer's version of Russian roulette."
The former report, appearing on the February 24 "Nightline," focused on a CITGO oil refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas that uses hydrofluoric acid in the refining process. This chemical, Ross warned, has made "fear" a "fact of life" for residents of the local community.
An apocalyptic Ross foretold the end times: "An unchecked release of the hydrofluoric acid, as seen in this test film, creating a kind of death cloud that swept across the Nevada desert."
Ross interviewed government scientists who spelled out the life-threatening effects of hydrofluoric acid and a few residents who "keep a bag packed at the door, ready to flee" if the aforementioned "death cloud" ever creeps up on them, but he only spoke with one source who supported the refinery and accused the oil industry of not taking safety seriously.
"You would admit it's not a good safety record?" asked Ross, interviewing Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, even though Drevna made no such statement.
Ross parroted unnamed "officials" who claim that only "luck" has prevented the ominous "death cloud" from engulfing Corpus Christi: "Can you really rely on luck to protect the American public?"
Drevna retorted that the industry relies on "technology," not luck, to ensure safety, but Ross would not let the facts get in the way of a good story: "Hardly reassuring words for the people of Corpus Christi who hear the sirens all day and all night, wondering if this is the day their luck will run out."
Residents of Corpus Christi are not the only people who should fear for their lives. Ross cited a study by the Center for Public Integrity, a liberal group, to fret that "16 million unsuspecting Americans [live] in potential kill zones."
That's right, Ross implied that millions of "unsuspecting" Americans live in areas that could be swept up in a "death cloud" at any moment.
If the story of the boy who cried wolf has a moral, it has been lost on Ross, who frequently hyperbolizes the findings of his "investigations," often to paint a depressing picture of the future.
In 2005, Ross sensationally hyped the epidemic potential of bird flu: "It could kill a billion people worldwide, make ghost towns out of parts of major cities, and there is not enough medicine to fight it. It is called the avian flu."
Fast forward to August 2009, when Ross drew a ludicrous connection between health care town hall protesters and racist hate groups, quoting Mark Potok of the left wing Souther Poverty Law Center: "I think that the president has, in effect, triggered fears among a fairly large numbers [sic] of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country."
On January 18, 2010, Ross bizarrely asserted that U.S. soldiers were "endangered" by "secret Jesus codes" scrawled on rifles used in Afghanistan.
And just this morning, on "Good Morning America," Ross somberly proclaimed that "renting a car may be a consumer's version of Russian roulette."
Apparently convinced that death lurks behind every corner, Ross has yet to file a "Nightline" investigation into the threat posed by his own shadow (that's called hyperbole).
A transcript of the "Nightline" investigation into "dangerous" oil refineries can be found below:
ABC
Nightline
February 24, 2011
11:47 p.m. EST
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: When we come back, the toxic threat next door. Millions of Americans live near oil refineries. But many don't know how dangerous it could be.
[...]
MCFADDEN: And now to energy. With all that's going on in the Middle East, the price of crude topped $100 a barrel yesterday for the first time since 2008. To turn that pricey crude into gas for the car, the oil, of course, must be refined. But investigators have found many refineries have failed to properly maintain aging equipment. Brian Ross says that has led to grave concerns. Brian?
BRIAN ROSS, ABC News chief investigative correspondent: Cynthia, the business of turning oil into gasoline involves lots of dangerous chemicals. But one chemical in particular has federal safety and homeland security officials very worried. And, as we found, for good reason. In Corpus Christi, Texas, the warning sirens come all times of the day and night, from the oil refineries just down the street.
JANIE MUMPHORD, Corpus Christi resident: You never know when you go to bed if you're going to live through the night, or if you have to run through the night.
ROSS: Fear is a fact of life for miles around in this community. People wonder, is it a test? A false alarm? Or the real thing like the last time?
JOHN EVANS, Corpus Christi resident: You hear a whistle blow for a few minutes and you don't know if you're going to have an explosion or whatever.
ROSS: Few have forgotten what happened the last time, less than two years ago, when an explosion at the CITGO refinery released a highly lethal chemical called hydrofluoric acid that just barely missed the neighborhood.
AL BRADLEY, Corpus Christi resident: Flames were straight down the street there at the refinery and some flames were coming over the top of those trees.
ROSS: Now, some residents keep a bag packed at the door, ready to flee.
JEAN SALONE, Corpus Christi resident: The fear is there and it's there for everybody.
ROSS: This is what they fear. An unchecked release of the hydrofluoric acid, as seen in this test film, creating a kind of death cloud that swept across the Nevada desert. It's a risk far beyond just Corpus Christi. An ABC N ews investigation with the Center for Public Integrity, found 50 oil refine rips using the chemical, from Houston to Minneapolis to Los Angeles to Philadelphia and in between, putting some 16 million unsuspecting Americans in potential kill zones.
Dr. RONALD KOOPMAN, retired government scientist: Your lungs hurt, you can't breathe. The lungs can't function. Eventually you die from asphyxiation.
ROSS: Dr. Ronald Koopman was a scientist when he helped conduct the studies in conjunction with Amoco oil.
KOOPMAN: It actually penetrates the skin, destroying the issue, trying to get to the bones and react. It's a very, very strong acid.
ROSS: This is really nasty.
KOOPMAN: It's really nasty stuff.
ROSS: Dr. Koopman says the oil companies did not want the video made public and insisted on posting a disclaimer that the test could not be used to estimate what might happen in a real accident. But Dr. Koopman says it could.
KOOPMAN: An accident could be this bad. An accident could look like this.
Story Continues Below Ad ?
ROSS: There are alternatives to hydrofluoric acid, but the industry says it would be too expensive to retrofit refineries, that the use of the chemical is safe with proper precautions. Charles Drevna is the president of the oil refineries trade group.
CHARLES DREVNA, president of National Petrochemical & Refiners Association: The track record indicates that over 70 years, while there's been incidents, it's been a reliable product that gets the job done.
ROSS: But in the last two years alone, there have been 29 fires and explosions at refineries that use hydrofluoric acid. Including this one, across the river from Bismarck, North Dakota.
DREVNA: Refineries are as safe as we can make them to be.
ROSS: As safe as you can make them?
DREVNA: But we have to understand that safety is the number one issue.
ROSS: You would admit it's not a good safety record?
DREVNA: I'm not saying it's not a good one. But as anything else, it has to be – safety is an evolving process.
ROSS: Investigators say the problem has become critical now because the oil refinery industry has failed to maintain aging equipment. After a hydrofluoric acid release in 2009 at this Sunoco refinery in Philadelphia, near the city's sports stadiums, federal investigators found the company has failed to "correct deficiencies" including an "established history of tube leaks dating back to 1973."
RAFAEL MOURE-ERASO, chairman of US Chemical Safety Board: The priority seems to be on production and safety seems to take a backseat.
ROSS: The chairman of the government's chemical safety board says the industry mentality is to run the refineries until they break.
MOURE-ERASO: So, basically, what we're talking about is, you are running this to failure.
ROSS: In the case of CITGO in Corpus Christi, the company says there was never any danger to the nearby neighborhood due to the hydrofluoric acid release. But officials say for the people that live nearby, it was more a case of luck, a shift in the winds that prevented a catastrophe. Can you really rely on luck to protect the American public?
DREVNA: No and if we relied on luck to protect anything, then we should be up for criticism. But we don't rely on luck. We rely on technology.
ROSS: How do you explain what happened in that case?
(CROSSTALK)
ROSS: How do you explain what happened in that case?
DREVNA: We can't look in the rear view mirror.
ROSS: Hardly reassuring words for the people of Corpus Christi who hear the sirens all day and all night, wondering if this is the day their luck will run out. Just yesterday, the state of Texas fined CITGO $300,000 for safety violations at the refinery that led to that last accident. And now, officials of the United Steelworkers Union, whose members work at many of those refineries, are calling on Congress to ban the use of that chemical. Cynthia?
MCFADDEN: Thank you, Brian. You can visit publicintegrity.org for a map of where those refineries are located.
--Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
Read more: newsbusters.org
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And did Mr. Ross ride a
Submitted by rwesley2.0 on Fri, 02/25/2011 - 4:51pm.
And did Mr. Ross ride a bicycle to all of these interviews and his studio? Then he is complicit in the creation of this "Death Cloud". What did he know and when did he know about it?!?!?
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Maybe Ross can revisit his former antics and
Submitted by Lord-come-soon-... on Fri, 02/25/2011 - 4:56pm.
find an old Ford Pinto in a junkyard somewhere and rig an explosive device underneath it. He then could drive it to an oil refinery, ignite the device and file a special report. He could even say he rented the Pinto and kill two birds with one stone. In fact, he could say the driver of the Pinto that exploded at the refinery was delirious with Bird Flu and kill three birds with one stone. What a dweeb.
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HF
Submitted by jdubya_az on Fri, 02/25/2011 - 5:06pm.
HF is used more in electronics (chips, etc.) than in refinery processing. You probably have it in your house in CLR or other rust removers. It is a vital component, just like sulfuric and nitric acids.
Those who are running chicken little, or in this case, trying to scare the sheople into demanding these chemicals be banned should be put to trial, drawn and quartered.
Enough.
Get a real education, or become the dependant slave these Orwellians want from you.
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Exposing lib sophistry: possibility vs probability
Submitted by lsudolemite on Fri, 02/25/2011 - 6:15pm.
Typical liberal reaction to argue that the possibility of something happening justifies regulating an industry to within an inch of its life, even if the odds of said calamity happening is lower than me winning the lottery. But hey we're all about safety regardless of the cost, right?
Besides, it's not like an environmental regulation is itself responsible for untold deaths. Oh wait...that happened when DDT was banned. Oh well, guess the government will come up with another control to fix that.
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After having lived about 35
Submitted by danbo on Fri, 02/25/2011 - 6:17pm.
After having lived about 35 or so years in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. How many refineries is that? And if we add the chemical plants. I've seen a couple of explosions and their aftermath. A few real close. As has been pointed out. Considering how long they've been around the track record is pretty good. And they're doing better now than in the 50's and 60's. More people have died because of the intervention of government. (IE Ban on DDT)
Of course we could give up these killers. Go back to horses in the streets. Feces everywhere wouldn't be a health issue. Spoiled food from lack of refrigeration isn't a big deal. Breathing in the soot from wood fired steam engines is no big deal. Or the occasional explosion of steam engines.
What's our life span? What's the life span in societies that haven't recieved the products of refineries?
Maybe we also aught to worry about evil molasses. There was the great molasses flood 1919 killing 21 people.
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I sent 32 years working in
Submitted by ConservativeRex on Fri, 02/25/2011 - 6:52pm.
I sent 32 years working in the largest refinery in the U.S. and I guarantee you that this Refinery is a safer workplace then the ABC studios where this news show is taped.
I will match our safety record to theirs any day. I will also match our environmental record against their any day of the week.
It appears to me that outfits like ABC just want to see businesses go under and folks lose their jobs because misery means better rateings. The Eagles were right.
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The Dangers of Distilleries
Submitted by CobraMan on Sat, 02/26/2011 - 9:42am.
If you think the oil refineries are dangerous, wait until you find out that distilleries, you know, the people who make that Ethanol you're burning in the car you're driving, use Nitric Acid in which to clean their vats! That acid, a very corrosive and dangerous substance, is stored in large tanks in strong concentrations, ready to be diluted and used as a cleaning solution. An accidental release of that acid would be devastating to the environment, and could kill hundreds of people. How much danger are we facing because of that extremely dangerous nitric acid? I'm surprised that Ross hasn't done a story on that possible Apocalypse as well. After all, a distillery is just as vulnerable as a refinery, and there are far more distilleries than there are refineries here in America.
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Is ABC News’ Brian Ross Trustworthy?
Brian Ross of ABC News is the reporter behind the story that Rep. Dennis Hastert is being investigated by the Department Of Justice. Ross is sticking to his charges despite vehement denials from both the DOJ and Hastert himself.
Some may recall that Brian Ross has been involved in past journalistic controversies. Just last week, Mr. Ross reported he was tipped off by unnamed "senior federal officials" that his cell phone was tapped by NSA.
Last month, Ross was one of the first (if not the first) to report that Rush Limbaugh "had been arrested." Reports which turned out to be greatly exaggerated, but which Ross never corrected.
In January, Brian Ross was the first to promulgate the claims of the self-proclaimed NSA whistleblower, Russell Tice. Ross treated Tice has a highly credible source even though Tice had been cashiered from the agency due to "psychological problems."
But all of these recent achievements pale in comparison to Mr. Ross’s earlier journalistic lapse, if an earlier entry in Wikipedia is to be believed. For it claimed Ross who was responsible for Dateline NBC’s rigging of truck fuel tanks in 1993.
Here is how the earlier Wikipedia entry for Dateline NBC used to read, via their mirror site at Answers.com:
Controversy
On 18 February 1993 Dateline NBC aired an investigative report about General Motors pickup trucks allegedly exploding upon impact during accidents, because fuel tanks were badly designed. Although there were fuel tanks design problems with GM cars before, Dateline’s film showed a sample of a staged low speed accident with the fuel tank exploding. Dateline NBC did not disclose the fact that this accident was staged, or the fact that the only reason there was an explosion was that the vehicle contained planted explosives. The viewers were never told about it. It appeared to be a major discovery of investigative reporters. GM investigators discovered a mistake by a study of the Dateline film. GM subsequently filed an anti-defamation lawsuit against NBC. The lawsuit in question was quickly settled by NBC and as a result Brian Ross and a few persons responsible for the incident were fired from NBC, and Ross found employment with ABC News, where he continues to work to this day.
But this is how Wikipedia Dateline entry reads currently:
Controversy
On February 18, 1993, Dateline NBC aired an investigative report about General Motors pickup trucks allegedly exploding upon impact during accidents, because fuel tanks were badly designed. Although there were fuel tanks design problems with GM cars before, Dateline’s film showed a sample of a staged low speed accident with the fuel tank exploding. Dateline NBC did not disclose the fact that this accident was staged, or the fact that the only reason there was an explosion was that the vehicle contained planted explosives. The viewers were never told about it. It appeared to be a major discovery of investigative reporters. GM investigators discovered a mistake by a study of the Dateline film. GM subsequently filed an anti-defamation lawsuit against NBC. The lawsuit in question was quickly settled by NBC.
The following Dateline NBC producers were dismissed: Jeff Diamond, executive producer; David Rummel, senior producer; and Robert Read, producer of the report on the pickups. The reporter involved in the segment, Michele Gillen, transferred to Miami station, WTVJ. Michael G. Gartner, president of the news division, resigned under pressure. Source: Kolbert, Elizabeth (Mar. 23, 1993). "NBC Admits Bad Judgment in Truck Report". The New York Times, sec. D, p. 23.
Even though the new incident was staged it inspired many highly publicized lawsuits, and GM greatly reduced the fuel capacity of their trucks as a result. The publicity also drove other automotive companies to make similar changes and even destroyed the high capacity third party fuel tank market that thrived up to then. Today its almost impossible to improve a truck’s fuel range by adding a tank that is designed to be mounted under the vehicle.
Note the conspicuous deletion of any reference to Brian Ross.
Several sites, including Free Republic, cited the Wikipedia article vis a vis Ross as recently as Dateline’s NASCAR incident last month.
Perhaps it is a correction of earlier misinformation. But the records of those involved in the Dateline scam seem to be quite scarce on the internet.
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