The government has struck a USD 5.6 million settlement with Bayer CropScience over an explosion that killed two people at the company's Institute, West Virginia pesticide plant in 2008, federal officials announced today.
Under the agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice, Bayer CropScience will commit to spending USD 452,000 on safety improvements at chemical storage facilities in West Virginia, Texas, Missouri and Michigan.
The company will spend another USD 4.23 million to improve emergency preparedness and response in Institute and protect the Kanawha River. Bayer CropScience also will pay a USD 975,000 civil penalty.
Federal investigators found that safety lapses led to the deadly runaway chemical reaction that killed two workers in August 2008.
"The tragic accident at the Bayer CropScience facility in West Virginia underscores the need for hazardous chemicals to be stored and handled in accordance with the law to protect worker health and the environment," Cynthia Giles, EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance assistant administrator, said in a news release.
"This settlement will establish important safeguards at its facilities across the country and improve emergency response capabilities in the Institute, West Virginia community."
A US Chemical Safety Board report blamed the blast on the chemical reaction inside a 4,500-gallon tank that broke down waste from making methomyl, which is used in the pesticide Larvin. The report says company management withheld information from county emergency officials during the response.
The process uses the highly toxic chemical methyl isocyanate, or MIC, but the blast did not damage a tank containing the chemical. The same chemical was responsible for the deaths of thousands in Bhopal, India, when it leaked from a former Union Carbide plant in 1984.
One worker died in the 2008 West Virginia explosion, which was as strong as 17 sticks of dynamite and caused damage seven miles away. A second worker died weeks later from burns.
