Chemical leak at a West Virginia plant kills 2 people and sends 19 more to hospital, officials say

I'm an environmental chemist who has to do HAZMAT safety training every year, I fuckin love the USCSB YouTube channel. Everyone I know who is involved in industrial hygiene/safety loves them.

They employ ~40 people total. The fact they put out animations is crazy.  https://www.csb.gov/assets/1/6/csb_fact_sheet.pdf

> Chemical Safety Board A link for the lazy: https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB

The best part is the industry wanted the CSB saved. They're not a regulatory agency. They just investigate and issue recommendations. And incidents like this not only cost lives and injuries, it also cost a lot of money. So companies have incentive to implement recommendations at their own sites, especially when some of them are relatively simple.

Oh wow, I had no idea this existed! Gonna binge watch them! Ty

Great just what I need, another good YouTube channel to binge on and be unproductive

I went into this thread to make sure people knew about the channel and I'm glad you mentioned it. Best damn government YouTube channel. Even the murica animated logo is fantastic lol I'm on the edge of my seat during the first half of each video, then I'm just shaking my head in disapproval at cut corners outlined in the second half.

Also the best narrator 

came here to say this. No doubt they will be able to explain how to prevent such a tragedy!

I had worked at a facility that had more than one USCSB video done on it. The last (Final?) one was epic.

Really they do! I have zero experience or knowledge of this stuff but their videos are so interesting and well done!

Yep, thought the same!

*Sheldon Smith voice* “…TOXIC HYDROGEN SULFIDE GAS”

PhD chemist here. I think you have a slight misunderstanding. The USCSB name is a slight misnomer as they do not govern, regulate, or set standards for specific chemicals. The project 2025 plan pages about fast tracking new chemicals would have nothing to do with the chemical safety board.

Yeah, but science=bad, potus said so.

But they wont let you let you burn everything - lives included - for larger short term and unsustainable profits. So of course the nearsighted executives who only give a shit about the next 3 months see them as a problem.

And that's the fucked up part. They'd rather be slightly more profitable than save hundreds of lives.

The company this happened at is primarily centered around silver products and silver compounds, so nitric acid also makes sense here.

Not even. They're getting the bonus and there will be layoffs. This upsets the CEO but it's something we have to do.

More like $14.88.

That is more than federal minimum wage. If that is not enough then cut back on avocado toast, idk what to tell people. Im just a singer in a rock in roll band

Then this company needs to serve jail time

It's why we got rulings like Citizens United (corporations united).

The only people that matter to politics

Yeah won’t someone think of the compensation this poor company will need after this??? ^/s

Luckily, the company can breathe a sigh of relied that it was not harmed by this chemical leak, huh?

GOP is pro-control, in basically every way. They want to cement the inequality between a special group of powerful controllers and a weaker group of subservient peasants. They do not care if someone in the servant class gets injured or killed from lack of regulations (or other work safety precautions), but they will be deeply troubled by someone in the power class potentially losing some of their profits.

[Randall Balmer](https://faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu/randall-balmer) makes a compelling case in an [article](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/) he wrote for Politico in 2014 that the origin of the anti-abortion movement and rise of the religious right wasn't about abortion at all but about segregation.

This is honestly insane… I live in an area in Germany where there’s lots of chemical plants, and I am also an trade union secretary for the chemical industry union in Germany. So I’m basically constantly in contact with chemical plants here. I also know the safety numbers for a lot of them. And yeah sometimes there’s an emergency but generally speaking most work related accidents are something minor, and are not related to chemical exposure. The typical stuff like slipping on a staircase, getting stuck in a machine (although that can be not minor as well, but we are talking non deadly, non limp losing accidents here). Totally not great but a lot of them are really the responsibility of the workers, as most investigations turn out. We have super strict workplace safety here, the employers are also super obsessed with keeping the numbers down because a) it looks bad if theres lots of accidents b) there’s hefty fines. Most companies I’ve been to have a fat LED panel, which counts the days without an accident, and a lot of them are in the hundreds of days. That doesn’t sound great at first - but they also count stuff like a strained ankle, or a cut in a finger thats solved with a bandaid, or at worst a few stitches. And most stuff that happens is not worse than that. A chemical leak that kills workers? Would be a death sentence for a chemical plant here. No one would want to work it, big consequences as well for the employer. I don’t get how this is still legal in the US… and how people vote against their interests. I mean this is not some depressing factory in Bangladesh, where shit like this isn’t surprising sadly, we’re talking first world country here… Honestly, I always felt like chemical plants /production are a lot safer than other producing industries. I am also a rep for the glass industry in my state, and holy shit, that is a lot more dangerous. But again, employers are proud of their safety measurements and try to outdo each other, workers are well equipped with Personal safety items, and also well schooled, there’s audits regularly, etc. Workers also don’t feel its unsafe, the biggest issue / struggle they have in regard of working conditions is working shifts, bcs plants run 24/7. But they get extra for going on shifts, but this isn’t super healthy tbf, wrecks your bio rhytm.

Shout out to the pleasant parts of being there … Tudors Biscuits, Ginos Pizza, and pepperoni rolls from Go Mart

I never thought about how other people didn't have shelter in place drills in grade school. That was as regular as a fire drill for us in Charleston.

Chemical Accident Elegy

The Dupes of Hazard Harold and Kumar Go To the ER Dude, Where’s My Oxygen?

Union Carbide was also responsible for Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster in WV some 50 years before they wrecked Bhopal.

Bhopal 2: Appalachian Boogaloo

My roots run 10 generations deep in West Virginia, and few things make me more spitting mad than watching the descendants of rednecks who fought the government _and_ the exploitative corporations simp for both.

If the cancer don't kill ya, then the doctor bill will

There's overtime and bonus opportunities galore And the young men like their money and they all come back for more But soon you're knocking on and you look older than you should For every bob made on the job, you pay with flesh and blood

Those are tears due to occular membrane irritation from exposure to caustic chemicals. 

Word from the top is we are no longer calling them "goods" now, they're called "bads" for transparency sake

Well... they'll be made more cheaply but that won't translate to a lower consumer price.

Tariffs would like to know your location

I have mine and RCRA next week

I will say, this seems like a valid criticism til you realize they were a solidly blue state for decades until the 90s. Democrats have a price too and WVians have been betrayed and sold to the highest bidder by so many elected officials who have promised better.