Union Carbide Fined $32,100 by OSHA : Firm Cited for Violations of Safety Rules in West Virginia Leak

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Union Carbide Corp. on Tuesday for three willful violations of safety rules and other infractions and fined the company $32,100 for the leak of toxic pesticide fumes at its Institute, W. Va., plant last August.

OSHA charged that plant supervisors failed to follow standard company procedures and to properly monitor chemicals in storage, thus causing the overheating of a reactor tank and the discharge of toxic gases. One hundred and thirty-five people were hospitalized as a result of the accident.

To Contest Citations

The company promptly said that it would contest the citations and fines within 15 days, as permitted by federal regulations. “Union Carbide operates its facilities in compliance with government laws and regulations,” spokesman Thad Epps said.

OSHA investigators said that the gas leak resulted from the uncontrolled decomposition of aldicarb oxime, a substance used to produce the pesticide Temik.

Chriss Winston, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that government chemists spent weeks trying to determine whether methyl isocyanate, the chemical linked to the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, last December, was present in the storage tank in which the West Virginia accident occurred. But only insignificant traces of this deadly chemical were found, she said.

OSHA’s report said that a tank containing the chemical dichloromethane was overloaded with aldicarb oxime at the Institute plant last Aug. 1 and that part of the mixture was transferred to a second tank for temporary storage. Six days later, nearly all the mixture was returned to the original tank.

Gaskets Ruptured

However, managers at the plant did not realize that some of the mixture remained in the second tank and inadvertently allowed it to be heated, according to acting Assistant Secretary of Labor Patrick R. Tyson. As a result of the heating, gaskets on the tank ruptured and allowed the toxic vapors to be released on Aug. 11, he said.

The transfer of chemicals from one tank to another violated company procedures, Tyson said. The violations included a poorly designed liquid-level gauge that failed to show that 4,000 pounds of the mixture remained in the second reactor tank, a breakdown in monitoring the chemicals in storage for temperature and pressure changes and an absence of any backup alarm system, federal officials said.

They said also that an emergency venting system did not operate properly.

Fines Called Too Small

OSHA officials said that they will continue to conduct “a wall-to-wall inspection” of the Institute plant, which they began on Sept. 17. This inspection involves several teams of OSHA experts and is expected to last an additional five to six months.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), who has conducted congressional hearings on pesticide controls, refused to comment on OSHA’s actions Tuesday. But Dingell noted that a recent study he had requested by the congressional Office of Technology Assessment had found OSHA’s schedule of monetary fines to be much too small.