Testimony of Rick Hind, Legislative Director

Greenpeace Toxics Campaign

Before the

Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics, Risk, and Waste Management

Of the

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

November 14, 2001

Greenpeace 702 H Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001

Tel: 202-462-1177 · Fax: 202-462-4507

Is the U.S. Chemical Industry Our Weakest Link Against Terror Attacks?

The magnitude of a terrorist attack just one major U.S. chemical facility could easily exceed the loss of life suffered on September 11 in New York City. We are overdue in addressing the inherent vulnerability of this industry to terrorists and accidents. Recent events underscore the immediacy of this threat including the two nation-wide security alerts by the FBI and a 72-hour moratorium by the railroad industry on carrying chemicals such as chlorine.

Even President Bush was at risk. On September 11, when Air Force One landed in Louisiana, he joined more than a million Louisiana residents who live in a region that is blanketed by chemical kill zones (www.greenpeaceusa.org). These kill zones surround more than 100 petro-chemical facilities located along the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. A regional investigation by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found security against terrorists at selected U.S. chemical facilities to be “fair to poor.”

Thankfully, there has never been a terrorist attack on a U.S. chemical facility. But there have been more than 3,000 accidents involving more than 10,000 pounds of hazardous materials since 1987, with smaller incidents occurring daily. A December 2000 study by the Argonne National Laboratory for the Department of Transportation concluded, “the failure to identify and evaluate opportunities to reduce the risks from these types of relatively rare accidents could ultimately lead to thousands of fatalities, injuries and evacuations.”

Senator Corzine’s bill (S. 1602) would finally begin the urgently needed process of addressing this crisis. It not only requires beefed up security it also puts prevention first, encouraging industry to eliminate catastrophic accidents and attacks by substituting inherently safer technologies. We applaud the Senator and his colleagues (Madame Chairwoman Boxer and Senator Clinton) for introducing and cosponsoring this important legislation.

More than 15,000 facilities across the U.S. are required to report their worst case accident scenarios to the EPA. These reports contain estimates on the distance that a deadly toxic chemical cloud could extend over neighboring populations. Unfortunately, pressure has recently been put on the EPA to deny public access to this basic information. Denying access to these reports will only accomplish one thing: it will leave the public without vital information needed to protect themselves in the event of an attack or an accident. Hiding basic hazards information from the public undermines the credibility of government and industry and will lead to dedicated terrorists being the only non-governmental people outside industry to have this information.

After using terrorism as an argument to hide potential chemical disasters, the U.S. chemical industry has been negligent in preventing accident and terrorist threats posed by chemical facilities, making, using or storing ultra-hazardous chemicals such as chlorine. Earlier this year Greenpeace exposed a significant example of this failure by publishing photographic evidence from inside a Dow Chemical plant in Plaquemine, Louisiana. The photos are also available on our web site (www.greenpeaceusa.org) show the internal control panels and operating instructions of an unguarded pump house that releases 550 million gallons of wastewater into the Mississippi River every day.

While investigating Dow’s Clean Water Act violations, Greenpeace activists entered this facility undetected. There were no guards at the perimeter, no security cameras and no burglar alarms. In fact, the door to the building was unlocked. All of these are rudimentary security measures that the

EPA recommended in their February 2000 security alert. The EPA also recommended “design” changes in plants that even fewer facilities have implemented.

In Washington, DC this month, Blue Plains, the local sewage treatment plant announced (Nov. 9^th) that they were now one year ahead of schedule in ending the use of the highly toxic chlorine gas. The reason given for this accelerated action was the possibility of a terrorist attack. The plant is only four miles from the U.S. Capitol. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the Coast Guard and the chlorine industry, a major chlorine gas leak can travel two miles in only 10 minutes and remain acutely toxic for a distance of approximately 20 miles.

Greenpeace recommends a set of short and long-term steps to truly eliminate these unnecessary and preventable disasters. In the short-term these include the immediate adoption of S. 1602 by Congress. In addition, an emergency program is needed to ensure there is a rapid phase out of shipping large quantities of these chemicals along with reductions in large quantity storage to levels that eliminate current threats posed to local communities. Other short-term actions should include the decentralized production of these substances to eliminate pressure for large container transport and storage.

In the long-term, virtually all of the ultra-hazardous chemicals used in the U.S. have safer substitutes and conversion to them should begin as soon as possible. To end toxic chemical pollution in the Great Lakes the International Joint Commission (U.S./Canada) recommended in 1992 that industry and government begin a phase out of the industrial uses of chlorine. Had this recommendation been initiated in 1992, we would have had a model program for eliminating the threats now posed by these inherently dangerous facilities.

America needs many systems to function, such as our besieged airline industry and the postal system. But we do not need to continue producing obsolete and ultra-hazardous chemicals that pose enormous risks to the public—with or without the threat of terrorist attack.

Rick Hind is the Legislative Director of the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign. For more information, call (202) 462-1177 or visit www.greenpeaceusa.org

ATTACHMENTS

702 H Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001

Tel: 202-462-1177 · Fax: 202-462-4507

August 10, 2001

Secretary Norman Mineta

Department of Transportation

400 7^th Street, SW

Washington, D.C. 20590

Dear Secretary Mineta,

The fire in Baltimore’s train tunnel, adjacent to Camden Yards, was a wake up call to the nation. Those who said it could never happen now must resort to claiming it will not happen again. To prevent a more serious chemical accident than the July 18-23 Baltimore tunnel fire aboard the CSX freight train, Greenpeace proposes that the Department of Transportation impose an immediate ban on the shipping of hazardous materials through highly populated communities. As you know, the transport of hazardous materials through either of Baltimore’s two highway tunnels is punishable by a year in jail.

The heroic deeds of Baltimore and other emergency response personnel not withstanding, this incident could easily have been catastrophic. According to a recent report done for the Department of Transportation (DOT) by the Argonne National Laboratory, “the potential exists for very serious accidents involving large numbers of injuries and fatalities, especially for TIH [toxic-by-inhalation] materials.”

The report further cautions:

“While review of the statistics alone might suggest that accidents associated with the transportation of hazardous materials should not be a major concern, these accidents can have enormous impacts when they occur. As a result, the failure to identify and evaluate opportunities to reduce the risks from these types of relatively rare accidents could ultimately lead to thousands of fatalities, injuries, and evacuations.”

As one of the leaders in Congress who led efforts to enact the federal right-to-know law in 1986, you know that legislation only became an imperative after the worst industrial accident in history occurred at the Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India in December, 1984. A leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) killed approximately 4,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands.

The Argonne report estimates that there are 100,000 shipments a year of equally toxic chemicals such as chlorine. In fact, Argonne lists chlorine and hydrochloric acid (HCL) among the top 10 materials responsible for major injuries and evacuations and emphasizes the need to focus on these TIH materials.

Enclosed is a map of a hypothetical release of 17,000 gallons of chlorine from a railroad tank care accident whose toxic fumes could reach 20 miles. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, chlorine gas concentrations of 10 parts per million (PPM) are classified as “immediately dangerous to life or health (IDHL). And according to modeling by the National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Coast Guard a chlorine gas cloud could travel 2 miles in just 10.5 minutes at concentrations of 100 PPM. The chemical industry’s Chlorine Institute also estimates that a chlorine cloud could travel 20.5 miles at concentrations above 10 PPM. --- Baltimore is 9 miles wide and 10.5 miles long.

Clearly, this kind of catastrophe is unacceptable. It is also completely preventable. By prohibiting the shipment of these materials through populated areas, you dramatically reduce the numbers of exposed people. However, to eliminate these risks for all communities, the federal government should also convene a multi-agency task force to address these hazards. A first step would be to implement the recommendations of the International Joint Commission which has repeatedly advised the U.S. and Canada to “sunset the use of chlorine and chlorine-containing compounds [such as HCL] as industrial feedstocks.”

Also enclosed is a copy of our letter to the EPA regarding their agreement to conduct dioxin sampling from the Baltimore train tunnel fire site. Because the fire aboard the CSX train involved thousands of gallons of leaking HCL, the conditions may have been ideal for the formation and release of dioxins. Dioxins are by-products of chlorine compounds exposed to fire and are potent carcinogens. It is important to determine if emergency response personnel, the community or biota in the harbor were exposed to dioxin as well.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Rick Hind, Legislative Director

Greenpeace Toxics Campaign

(202) 319-2445

rick.hind@wdc.greenpeace.org

CC:

Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator

702 H Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001

Tel: 202-462-1177 · Fax: 202-462-4507

August 17, 2001

Ms. Christine Todd Whitman

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20004

Dear Ms. Whitman,

As you may know, a number of serious incidents involving hazardous materials and toxic chemicals have renewed concerns that a chemical accident on the scale of the 1984 Bhopal, India disaster could occur in a large populated area in the U.S., such as Philadelphia or Baltimore. These and several other U.S. cities are home to high concentrations of chemical facilities and are also heavily traveled by trains, trucks and ships carrying ultra-hazardous cargo, putting densely populated communities and business centers at risk.

According to a recent report done for the Department of Transportation (DOT) by the Argonne National Laboratory, the risks in transporting hazardous materials are potentially catastrophic. The report cautions:

The enclosed map illustrates a worst case scenario submitted to the EPA by Occidental Chemical for a chlorine tank failure of 400,000 pounds at their facility in New Castle, Delaware. They estimate that dangerous chlorine fumes could spread 20 miles from their plant, an area populated by 585,000 people. In addition, the map shows a similar scenario involving a train accident involving a 90 ton chlorine tank car with toxic chlorine also reaching 20 miles. These two scenarios blanket populated areas in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey where millions of people live and work.

The DOT report estimates that there are 100,000 shipments a year of chlorine alone. In fact, they list chlorine and hydrochloric acid (HCL) among the top 10 materials responsible for major injuries and evacuations. They also emphasize the need to focus on these highly toxic-by-inhalation (TIH) substances.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, chlorine gas concentrations of 10 parts per million (PPM) are classified as “immediately dangerous to life or health” (IDHL). According to the National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Coast Guard, a chlorine gas cloud could travel 2 miles in just 10.5 minutes at concentrations of 100 PPM.

Two recent incidents in the Mid-Atlantic region have served as a sobering wake up call. On July 17 the catastrophic failure of a storage tank containing spent sulfuric acid at Motiva Enterprise’s Delaware City, DE refinery resulted in eight injuries and left one person missing. On July 18 a CSX train derailment and tunnel fire paralyzed Baltimore for five days while hydrochloric acid and other toxic chemicals burned off and leaked into the Baltimore harbor.

Even without accidents, chemical facilities in this region pose serious hazards to human health and the environment:

Occidental’s Delaware chlorine plant uses an obsolete mercury-cell chlor-alkali process to make chlorine that threatens the region with contamination from fugitive emissions. It is one of 11 remaining mercury-cell plants in the U.S., representing approximately 14% of chlorine manufacturers. The others use mercury-free processes such as diaphragm and membrane processes. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the largest commercial use of mercury in the U.S. is in mercury-cell chlorine plants which account for 35% of all domestic consumption of mercury.

The EPA is currently engaged in a partnership with Occidental and the other chlorine industry users of mercury that will perpetuate their use of 80 tons of mercury a year. One EPA official admitted that this program is a “best of the worst” project. This kind of sweet-heart deal further calls into question the credibility of the Bush Administration’s proposal to delegate environmental enforcement to the states. --- “Enforcing” unnecessary mercury use and ongoing chlorine risks can hardly be called protecting the environment.

In contrast, European nations who are members of the Paris Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution from Land-Based Sources (PARCOM) agreed in 1990 to phase out all mercury-cell chlor-alkali plants by 2010.

Other chlorine users in this region include Dupont, which recently reported that it’s Edge Moor, Delaware plant was responsible for 500,000 tons of dioxin-contaminated waste. Dupont’s titanium dioxide plant uses a chlorine process which results in the generation of dioxins and furans as waste by-products. Dioxins and furans are chlorinated by-products of the use of chlorine in manufacturing and disposal, such as waste incineration.

To prevent the most serious chemical accidents Greenpeace proposes a three stage process:

1) In an August 10 letter to the Department of Transportation we proposed an immediate ban on the shipping of hazardous materials through highly populated communities. For example, the transport of hazardous materials by truck through either of Baltimore’s two highway tunnels is punishable by a year in jail but trains routinely carry hazardous materials through the center of Baltimore. As an interim measure, makers of TIH substances should also be urged to make batches of these substances for local-use-only to minimize any shipping of these materials.

2) To eliminate these risks for all communities, we recommend that a multi-

agency task force be convened to prioritize the most hazardous chemicals first. The next step in this process would be to implement the recommendations of the International Joint Commission which has repeatedly advised the U.S. and Canada to “sunset the use of chlorine and chlorine-containing compounds as industrial feedstocks.”

Likewise, the global treaty you signed in Stockholm this May requires the phase out of the worst persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including the elimination of dioxin. President Bush has pledged to seek Senate ratification of the POPs treaty this summer but the elimination of dioxin will also require a long-term commitment to phase out chlorine. The major industrial uses of chlorine are PVC plastics, solvents and bleaching paper. All of these uses have widely available safer alternatives such as vegetable-based plastics, water-based solvents and oxygen-based bleaching.

3) In the meantime, the chlorine industry should at a minimum be required to eliminate the use of all their remaining mercury-cell processes by 2010 as the European PARCOM countries have agreed to do.

The worst industrial accident in history occurred at the Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India in December, 1984, when a leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) killed approximately 4,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands. We in the U.S. are fortunate that an accident of this magnitude has not yet occurred here. However, if and when a similar disaster occurs, you will be asked why the continued manufacture and use of ultra-toxic chemicals was allowed, especially when safer alternatives were available.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Rick Hind

Legislative Director, Greenpeace Toxics Campaign

(202) 319-2445

rick.hind@wdc.greenpeace.org

CC:

Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta