To: Pogeu Mahone who wrote (89845 ) 5/1/2013 2:19:07 PM From: Broken_Clock 3 Recommendations Read Replies (2) | Respond to The fertilzer plant is not going to move to your neighberhood Terrorism killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11. But in the dozen years since then, terrorists on American soil have taken the lives of fewer than 25, including those at the Boston Marathon and Fort Hood. By contrast, every year, more than 4,000 perish in American workplaces. These deaths are commemorated every April 28 on Workers Memorial Day . It's every April 28 because workplace fatalities are relentless. huffingtonpost.com inherent weakness of self-reporting requirements and because of inadequate funding for OSHA , federal officials were virtually unaware of the dangers at the plant. 400 pounds of the explosive fertilizer ammonium nitrite report to Homeland Security. This may be because home-grown terrorist Timothy McVeigh used 4,000 pounds of it to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168. Or maybe it was the nation's worst industrial catastrophe, in which a ship loaded with ammonium nitrate docked at the Port of Texas City in 1947 caught fire, exploded and killed nearly 600 people. 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate next to a school, playground, apartment building and nursing home in the town of 2,800. So, of course, Homeland Security didn't know.OSHA didn't return in the ensuing 28 years . But that's not surprising considering OSHA has so few inspectors that it would take 131 years for it to examine every American workplace one time.54,000 pounds of another hazardous fertilizer, anhydrous ammonia , which could kill large numbers of people if leaked. In its most recent plan, the plant reported no risk of fire or explosion, saying the most serious threat was a 10-minute release of anhydrous ammonia. The underfunded and overworked CSB, which has only 20 investigators nationwide, recommended in 2002 that the EPA require reporting of hazardous materials like ammonium nitrate. But agriculture and fertilizer lobbyists opposed that, and the anti-regulation Bush administration took no action.but encountered only finger wagging and minor sanctions from state regulators in Texas which boasts of its anti-regulatory regime .
