1000 die/year US Chemical Plant explosions; none terrorism; ChatToday

[GCJeffrey@aol.com]

1000 die/year US Chemical Plant
explosions; none terrorism; Chat Today

 http://chat.enn.com
Live chat today 4-6 pm on the following:


Environmental Terrorism, Fact or
Fiction?

By Claude Morgan
Thursday, September 9, 1999 
ENN
http://enn.com
http://www.enn.com/features/1999/09/090999/righttoknow_4918.asp
News produced in association with the
top news services from around the world,
including  Associated Press, Reuters,
Knight-Ridder/Tribune.
Copyright © 1999 Environmental News
Network, Inc.


On February 19, 1999, a huge explosion
ripped through the Concept Sciences Inc.
chemical plant in Allentown, Pa., killing
five people, shattering windows and
blowing the tiles off the ceiling of a
nearby day care center where Doni
Binczak's five-year-old son was playing. 

At first, Doni was shocked. Then she
was furious. 

"If I had known that this chemical
company had moved into the industrial
park next to my son's day-care," says the
36-year-old mother, "I could have made
an informed decision about whether to
keep him enrolled there." (The federal
government later charged the company,
CTI, with 20 safety violations and
suggested fines totaling $641,200.) 

It's bad enough that Doni and other
mothers like her are kept in the dark
about the risk of chemical hazards and
the potential for accidents right in their
own back yards. But a new law will
make it even more difficult for them to
know. The reason: Some lawmakers
think that information about chemical
risks is fodder for potential terrorists,
especially if that information appears on
the Internet. 

In August, Congress killed a landmark
"community right-to-know" law, which
would have required an estimated 66,000
chemical facilities to warn the public
about the dangers of so-called
"worst-case" accident scenarios - the
chemical industry's best guess at the
biggest disaster a chemical plant can
host. President Clinton signed the bill on
August 4. 

The new measure, the Fuels Regulatory
Relief Act, places an immediate
moratorium on public access to the
scenarios, and outlaws the publication of
that information on the Internet. 

Environmentalists and civil liberties
groups complain that the new measure
shields the chemical industry from
scrutiny while doing little to reduce the
accident potential industry creates.
Furthermore, they warn, the measure
could erode public access to information
in the future. 

"The public has already won the right to
know what could happen in worst-case
chemical scenarios," says Paul Orum,
coordinator of the working Group on
Community Right To Know, an
organization that tracks government and
industry compliance with community
right-to-know laws nationwide. 

Orum maintains that Congress addressed
this issue in 1990: The Clean Air Act
ordered chemical companies to compile
inventories, accident histories, and
worst-case scenarios for the EPA to
publish on the Internet this year. 


But is too much information in the
wrong place a recipe for disaster? 

"The problem, today, is the Internet,"
says Mark Burtschi, Director Air Quality
at the National Association of
Manufacturers. 

He and others who supported the Act
this summer argue that posting chemical
worst-case scenarios on the Internet
could tempt a net-savvy terrorist with an
irresistible menu of industrial targets. 

"Terrorists will take this information and
target facilities, and sit in Iran or
wherever they want to be, and cause a
real worst-case scenario through an
Information-Technology system," warns
Jody Westby, a former policy analyst and
Internet consultant. 

"This measure strikes the right balance
and fixes the problem that would have
placed this information into the hands of
terrorists," said Rep. Tom Bliley, Rep.,
Va, who sponsored a similar bill this
spring. 


But how real is the threat of terrorism? 

"This is about companies not wanting to
take responsibility for the accident
potential they create," says Timothy
Gablehouse, a Denver, Colorado lawyer
who chairs his Local Emergency
Planning Committee. "Terrorism is a
bogeyman." 

Most computer experts agree that posting
an electronic database on the Internet
does little to expose chemical facilities to
"hackers" or cyber-attacks. 

Ari Schwartz, a policy analyst for the
Center for Democracy and Technology,
takes a broader view of the new law. The
moratorium creates a troubling
exemption to the 1966 Freedom of
Information Act, he says. "And that may
have a profound effect on public access
to public information." 

If anything, says Orum, lawmakers'
attention to terrorism has been
misdirected. In 1997, chemical facilities
reported 38,305 chemical accidents -
roughly one chemical fire, spill, or
explosion every fifteen minutes. And of
those reported, more than 1,000 resulted
in death or injury. 

"To the best of my knowledge," he adds,
"there has never been a terrorist attack on
a chemical facility in the U.S."


  Related stories:  

Congress takes a crack at the
environment ENN News — June 28,
1999

Chevron faces $100 million Clean Air
Act suit ENN News — June 12, 1998

    Related sites:  


The Emergency Planning and
Community Right-to-Know Act
(EPCRA) Working Group on
Community Right to Know

Testimony before the House Committee
on Commerce Action concerning the
Chemical Safety Information and Site
Security Act of 1999

Chemicals in your community: A guide
to the emergency planning and
community right to know


"Terrorism is a bogeyman."  Timothy
Gablehouse, lawyer   Live Chat 

TODAY from 

4 to 6 p.m. EDT. 

Come chat with a panel of experts

Join us at http://chat.enn.com

Today's panelists are Paul Orum from the
Working Group on Community Right to
Know; Arthur F. Burk, a Senior Safety
Fellow at DuPont; and Claude Morgan,
the story's author.

  Take the Poll  What do you think of the
possibility of a terrorist strike on a
chemical plant?

A very real and distinct possibility  12% 
I could see this happening  19%  The
danger seems fairly remote  56%  There
is no danger from this  12%  Total votes 
16    Book: Toxic Deception: How the
Chemical Industry Manipulates Science,
Bends the law, and Endangers Your
Health

By Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle, Center
for Public Integrity