#environmentalafterthought

Sept 21 - Consider this one a PSA.  A PSA on PAA; what’s PAA you ask, well as the fine folks of Canton, Georgia just found out, its a chemical that somehow contributes to the creation of deboned chickens but apparently tends to go boom too.  That because the acidic compound is also an organic oxidizer which means it has a bubbly personality that when excited effervesces causing quite the scene.  Here, a shipping Truck popping in to the facility appeared to shake the cardboard box that had a frowny face on it rather than a smile (or was it just upside down… could have been the problem) a bit too hard before asking for a last name after the desk clerk scribbled on the electronic pad they carry for receipt purposes.  Four folks (assuming one of them is that poor FedEx driver) ended up in the hospital for breathing issues, which suggests to me this stuff got airborne which means there was probably a small boom.  So, this careless handling of a rather touchy substance that is used across a diverse range of industries subsequently caused a shut down of the dead-end interstate I-575 for over two miles, the same interstate that gets you about as far north of Atlanta as civilization can bear for all those preppers that also have to commute to their daily grind presumably not much further than Roswell cause any further down and you got to be asking yourself, Honey Boo, maybe we ought to just move on down to Buckhead and become yuppies like we always wanted.

At any rate, the purpose of all this was that just a little batch of some PAA, also known as peracetic acid, or more properly peroxyacetic acid, an organic peroxide which has two great tastes that sometimes appear to be a deadly combination, caused some almost inconceivable chaos for those daily commuters.  The substance is generally referred to as a biocide which is just a fancy way of saying it kills things that are alive but instead of just being bad for your health like some of the more common ones like glutaraldehyde, PAA also has the added benefit of being a hardcore oxidizer, so hardcore they put it in hydrogen peroxide just to make it chill!  The food grade stuff like at this chicken farm is usually not so hardcore to cause this kind of chaos unless getting the high grade stuff and making your own mix is your style.  

And frankly, I would have been more than happy to say hey Pilgrims Pride, at least you aren't in the news for contaminating my chicken with salmonella, listeria, and mad cow disease (also please let me know if I will get a peanut allergy from this product or not!) all in one shot; I am guessing this PAA has something to do with it.  I would have been more than happy to let this one go if it didn't appear to be somewhat of a trend these days, since just literally the day before the same thing happened this time at a mushroom farm, cause you know, fungus, in beautiful Kennet Square, Pennsylvania, which is probably just far enough away from Philly (and just close enough to Wilmington) to be considered that part of PA that isn't Philly or Pitts, and so is OK to just consider Alabama, causing a total of nine workers to go to the hospital in the area where they sanitize those cute little mushroom heads (and the only surprising thing to me here is that it takes more workers to sanitize mushrooms then it does to cut the head off a chicken).  And OK, that may just be an odd coincidence, but then how do you explain that ANOTHER chicken farm just three months before, this one just across the border in majestic Selbyville, DE, over 300 gallons of PAA spilled and this time oddly enough apparently it was just hanging out in the parking lot.  Weird, JUST like in Canton?!  And again only four workers got sick at this chicken plant (they say it happens in threes so that will be a total of 12 chicken employees sick when its all said and done, keep an eye out for the next one).

But oh, no, we are not done yet.  Because then, just two months before that in May, across the pond (no the other one on the western side) at a hospital in Melbourne, AU, a woman who had just been rushed in for an emergency C-section (as opposed to those planned ones), was apparently NOT exposed along with the hospital staff to a spill of just 200 mL of the stuff, which is along the lines of a thimble’s worth causing them to evacuate to another part of the hospital to keep on with that baby-birthing stuff.  See, not only does it make chicken and mushrooms yummy, but it ALSO kills the heck out of any microbes that might get stuck on all those medical scopes doctors like to stick inside people.  That makes sense, in that application you want the high-grade stuff, but I guess just preferably not near the people that you also want to make sure get born without any major hiccups.

And by the way, we aren’t done yet, because now across the other pond, the one you probably were thinking of properly the first time, back in December of 2017, PAA was spilled at a Eli Lily facility, and this is where things start to get super weird because all they do here is work on “Global Business Initiatives” and process time cards or something, so why they were getting a delivery (yes, this happened in the parking lot AGAIN!), this time 200 litres of the stuff, which is something like 100 gallons or so, again basically shut down all roadway commutes from Cork to anywhere but Cork heading east.  And if you thought those stiff upper lips on the other island werent going to have to worry about all this, they saw their OWN spill of another 200 litres of the stuff, this time appropriately enough at a crisps packaging plant in sunny Leicester (apparently they just clean the floors with the stuff there) the month before and nobody suffered even a lick which is probably what has been keeping everyone’s guard down since all these started happening one after the other.

Now just think, what will it take for us to start saying, hmmm, this PAA by FedEx thing doesnt seem to be working too well.  Also, having it sitting around just waiting to be poured out in bulk, doesnt seem to be working to well either.  Because again, like a canary in a coalmine, way back in July of 2017, we could have nipped this in the bud when a it was reported that a water treatment plant in Hoboken New Jersey and colocated with a NJ light rail station caused a shutdown of the whole system when apparently a blue-collar guy at the plant got a bad whiff of a spill that caused mass hysteria for two hours during morning commute.

Jul 29 - In what can only be considered a facepalm of epic proportions, the coal tramper, TB Marina, coming out of Bengkulu with a load of a mere 7,000 tons of sweet bitumen was tossed about in rough seas during high tide off the coast of Lampuuk beach causing the barge to become detached and eventually ran aground a few coal stone’s throw away from shore.  All 7,000 tons dumped into the waters and eventually made it to shore in a pretty effective beach replenishment if that is what they were going for.  Now I know what you are thinking, hey there's no coal-fired power plant in Besar District the nearest one I can think of is Nagan Raya which is nowhere NEAR Lampuuk, and of course you would be right.  The load was destined for the pretty innocent PT LafargeHolcim (or is it HolcimLafarge, I have no clue where that merger is at these days other than the Paris Op hanging an abandoned sign in its front window), a cement manufacturer and if at this point you are saying wait a second when is coal used to make cement, all I can say is you have no imagination whatsoever.

Apr 29 - One minute its a normal sleepy night in Taoyuan City, Taiwan trying to chill until your next shift at Chin Poon Industries, one of the numerous printed circuit board manufacturers in the district (this one exclusive to the automobile industry), next you are cleaning up dead fish because a five-alarm fire (the most alarms a fire can have, i think) broke out in your factory and you no longer have a job.  Its a rough life working the PCB and semi-conductor manufacturer life in Asia; first, you work ridiculous hours day or night, then you pretty much have to live in your factory because you can’t afford to stay anywhere else (and yes you pay to live in your factory), by the way you are not even in your home country, probably coming from some smaller south Asian country like Vietnam or Laos, and then it could be a major accident happens and your home and livelihood go up in flames, oh and you could die from all that like the two Thai workers trapped in their flat when the process coating the unstamped PCBs went up in flames. 

Like big time, so much that five fire fighters died fighting a fire that lasted almost 40 hours when heavy debris impaled them.  If that hadn’t done it, the acidic brew might have which leaked into the local Nankan River; the same river that makes its way out to that big Ocean to the north fouling the waterway and making ceviche out of the local fauna.

Apr 26 - Quite a scene at the Superior Refinery in you guessed it Superior, Wisconsin right on the taint end of Lake Superior, the Great Lakes’ largest lake (I think).  Husky Energy are the fine folks who are stuck holding this hot potato passed around now since Murphy Oil squeezed the last bit of blood out of this turnip in the early 2000s.  A number of mostly chemical manufacturers have tried to make a go at this puppy, selling for almost $500M not even six months ago.  That’s what I call failing up!

The facility was on a shut-down as they desperately struggled to get this show back on the road.  Husky wanted it because it gets them a direct line to their Hardisty Canada storage terminals.  This facility is primarily an asphalt plant but a number of side jobs allowed it to produce some refined product such as gas and diesel as well as a chemicals unit.

The details are mum still a week or two later, but likely some maintenance activities (think hot work) ignited flammable vapors (and from the two explosions that were felt almost a half-mile away as well as the debris and damage found all around the plant, it was probably a lot) in the fluid catalytic cracking unit.  Only eleven workers were injured who were working around the unit when the explosion went, and thats pretty amazing.  Husky made pains to let you know that no hydrogen fluoride was harmed during this incident, so almost certainly the alkylation process was involved with the explosion (where HF is used as a catalyzer in the process).  Use of HF as a catalyzer at refineries is a complaint from communities as old as time.

Also, despite the smoke plume traveling for over 30 miles, no air quality concerns were noted.  As a matter of fact, Mayor of Superior, Jim Paine (sense the theme here?) was quick to end the evacuation order and pointed out less than 20 hours later that  “All indications are that the refinery site is safe and stable and the air quality is clean and normal”.  A relief to the many residents, schools, and businesses under order to leave.

Mar 15 - Sad series of events out here at the Tri-Chem blending and manufacturing plant just outside Cresson, TX taking a right on Highway 171 coming in from Fort Worth heading towards Granbury.  The facility has just recently kicked off operations no less from its parent operation in beautiful St. Gabriel, LA and now a pretty tragic outcome after one worker was killed (and just confirmed today on the 23rd as the one worker still missing), another seriously burned, along with at least one other minor injury occurring.

This Tri-Chem facility mixed food-grade and industrial phosphates into various mixtures for any number of perfectly normal and possibly a few not so normal processes.  Basics like phosphoric acid to specialty substances like tetrapotassium pyrophosphate (TKPP) and sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) are made into varying liquid concentrations.  The early reports suggested an unidentified substance caught fire when a worker dragged his foot on the ground.  The fire spread to the person still in the hospital and then the explosions happened.  That’s where our fatality was just found; it took this whole week just to clean up the debris and hazardous substances before hazmat crews could reach the body for recovery.  That story checks out in my book, I cannot tell you how many fires i have adverted after a nearly fatal foot-friction incident.  The solid SHMP is not much of a health hazard since well its used in processed food preservation but TKPP creates a toxic phosphor-containing brew when burned.

Jan 9 - Its been a string of unfortunate events down here in Gadani on the Pakastani Coast at the local Ship Yard which decommisions derelict vessels in a somewhat grusome manner; it appears to involve the murder of indigent workers.  At todays debacle a mere five workers were killed when an abandoned LPG tanker occupying plot 60 mysteriously caught fire (again) during morning tea.  If there was a sign saying X days without a fatality in the yard the sign would have had a 1 on it since a worker was killed just yesterday less dramatically then this particular incident most likely.

I do not want to be the one giving Gadani a black eye here, though, it just sounds like bad luck to me.  For instance, back in late October, the final tally appears to be 27 workers died with multiple more injured on MT Aces, an old Japanese oil tanker when it went up in flames as a worker torch cutting randomly through its interior lingered too long on a buried compressed gas cylinder causing a catastrophic explosion.  Needless to say its one way to breakdown a ship.  There are an endless stream of these incidents most which go unreported or uncared.  Like the time a storage tank fell on some workers.

Dec 14 - Not much to see here folks, its hardly noticeable really.  But if you zoom in on the above picture near that red building in the center of the still you can see the ground looks awfully dark and nothing like the ground so near.  What is it?  Diesel we are told as a very long row of flammable placarded DOT 111 tank cars stretch to the horizon above the stain.  Granted that Bakken oil runs through here at the Missoula rail yard from North Dakota all the way out to Washington before taking either a hard right turn if heading to Canada or a hard left if heading down to California refineries.  Whatever the case, just 7,000 gallons of diesel escaped a “pipeline” and met dirt the day before.  Of course thats only a quarter of one of those tank cars so either they are running light or their empties are nowhere near empty if its not diesel.