NATIONAL BRIEFING / WASHINGTON, D.C.
Bayer CropScience withheld information from emergency responders after a deadly explosion at a West Virginia chemical plant last summer, and has since used a terrorism-related law to keep some documents secret, a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee said.
The report by the panel’s staff said that Bayer “engaged in a campaign of secrecy by withholding critical information from local, county, and state emergency responders . . . and by providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public.”
The Aug. 28 explosion and fire at the plant in Institute, W.Va., killed two people.
The blast came close to compromising a tank holding methyl isocyanate, or MIC, the report said. The same chemical was responsible for the deaths of thousands in Bhopal, India, when it leaked from a former Union Carbide plant in 1984.
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