DuPont Worker Dies At Chemical Plant
26 January 2010 CHARLESTON, West Virginia, US — Trading Markets.com reports that Carl “Dan” Fish of Gallagher, West Virginia, US — a 32-year DuPont employee who worked as an operator at the company’s plant in Belle, West Virginia — died late Sunday night after being exposed to phosgene at the plant on Saturday, Jan. 23. “We are deeply saddened that one of our Belle teammates passed away,” Bill Menke, Belle plant manager, said in a prepared statement released Monday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.” Fish was an integral part of the Belle plant’s Site Emergency Response team for much of his career, the company said.
The Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority had transported Fish to the Charleston Area Medical Center’s General Division after he was exposed to phosgene from a leaking transfer hose. Phosgene is used as a chemical intermediate to make plastics and pesticides. “We use it as a feedstock to some of our crop protection chemicals,” Menke said. According to the Centers for Disease Control, phosgene is a poisonous gas at room temperature. “Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking (pulmonary) agent,” the Centers said. “Among the chemicals used in the war, phosgene was responsible for the large majority of deaths.” With cooling and pressure, phosgene can be converted into a liquid so it can be shipped and stored. “When liquid phosgene is released, it quickly turns into a gas that stays close to the ground and spreads rapidly,” according to the Centers.
In low concentrations, phosgene “has a pleasant odor of newly mown hay or green corn, but its odor may not be noticed by all people exposed,” according to the Centers. It may be colorless or appear as a white to pale yellow cloud. Exposure may cause delayed effects that may not be apparent for up to 48 hours, even if the person feels better or appears well following removal from exposure. Therefore, people who have been exposed to phosgene should be monitored for 48 hours afterward, according to the Centers. Exposure can result in severe respiratory effects, severe eye irritation, skin burns and death. No antidote exists for phosgene.
DuPont decided on Saturday that the Belle plant would shut down for a “safety pause.” DuPont referred to it on Monday as a “voluntary safety stand down,” with the purpose to “reinforce the seriousness of this situation and maintain the site’s focus on safe work, consistent with DuPont’s core values. The site is undergoing a thorough investigation of the units involved in the incidents,” DuPont said.
The phosgene incident is one of four incidents to occur over the weekend at the Belle plant. The other incidents are as follows:
- On the evening of Friday, Jan. 22, operators at Belle discovered a rupture disc had blown in one of the production units, allowing methyl chloride vapor to be released to the atmosphere. Plant personnel determined that the disc may have blown prior to the startup of the facility five days earlier and that up to 1,900 pounds of methyl chloride may have been vented to the atmosphere. Methyl chloride is a colorless, poisonous gas used in the production of fungicides and pesticides. “It’s a reaction product of one of our crop-protection chemical processes,” Menke said. “It goes through a thermal oxidizer to destroy it.”
- A fume alert sounded at 7:45 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, as a result of a sulfuric acid leak in the spent acid recovery process. Site operations personnel determined that less than 20 pounds of sulfuric acid escaped into the environment.
- A power cord shorted to an outside lighting fixture and was de-energized. “There was never a fire, never a hazard to anyone,” Menke said.
None of the incidents were related, Menke said. “They’re all separate events.”
Menke said the pause or stand-down will go on “as long as it is needed. I’m not giving a time to anyone, and that includes my management. When it is appropriate for us to resume operations, then we will do so.”
“Everyone is coming to work” at the Belle plant, which has about 400 DuPont workers, Menke said. “This is all part of our process for safety improvement. We all work together. Everybody’s out doing their part in checking equipment, reviewing procedures, taking a look at operating protocols to make sure that, yep, it is right. We obviously fundamentally believe it is, but we want to take a pause and make sure we’re not missing something. The units that had incidents were shut down immediately and won’t be started up until the results of those investigations are completed. We won’t start up anything until we get it fixed. We truly do believe we have a safe operation. We demonstrated that in the past. We also pay attention to it every day.”
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