Bad chemistry in Danvers
ONE YEAR after a massive explosion at a paint and ink factory in Danvers, the reverberations are still being felt as far away as Washington, D.C., where tensions between local and federal officials have leached into the confirmation process for a new chairman of the US Chemical Safety Board. If unresolved, the feud could undermine public safety at a time when the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services is promising to launch "a robust and comprehensive statewide chemical safety initiative."
Congress created the Chemical Safety Board in 1990 to investigate and determine the causes of chemical accidents like the one that damaged or destroyed more than 250 homes and businesses in Danvers on Nov. 22, 2006. The board is well-regarded for exposing safety flaws in the chemical industry, such as the 2005
A clash of command
Homeland Security regulations make clear that local public safety officials retain primary responsibility during emergencies. But these local incident commanders are also charged with integrating federal, state, and local responses. That didn't happen in Danvers. Concord Fire Chief Kenneth Willette, the president of the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts, says the problem rests with the CSB investigators who tried to run roughshod over local public safety personnel and refused to be absorbed into the unified command. If CSB were to show up at an accident site today, says Willette, it would require a "very ginger process" of negotiation.
This situation is untenable. Chemical Safety Board personnel need the same level of access to chemical accident sites that federal transportation safety officials receive at the site of a plane crash or bridge collapse. If the CSB's statutory authority is unclear, then Congress needs to adjust the law so that CSB officials cannot be barred from chemical accident sites by local and state officials, especially during the initial stages following an accident when physical evidence is easiest to recover.
But the campaign to undermine the Chemical Safety Board continues. On March 19, the state fire chiefs association passed a resolution declaring that local public safety commanders trump the Chemical Safety Board, and warned the federal agency's former chairwoman, Carolyn Merritt, that "no Fire Chief will be faced with this issue again." Then the Massachusetts chiefs called on their firefighter brethren for mutual assistance. A Nov. 8 letter from the 13,000-member Virginia-based International Association of Fire Chiefs to California Senator Barbara Boxer accuses the Chemical Safety Board of "arrogance in dealing with the on-scene incident commanders" and fostering "mistrust, conflict, and confusion." Boxer chairs the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is deliberating over the appointment of CSB board member John Bresland as the agency's new chairman.
Bulldozing the evidence
Back in Danvers, the situation remains hot. State and local fire officials argue that they barred the CSB from the Danvers site, in part, over concerns that federal inspectors might trample a potential crime scene. It's an odd claim given the fact that CSB inspectors are trained in evidence preservation and have worked at the sites of roughly 50 chemical accidents across the United States. But now charges are surfacing that evidence may indeed have been compromised, though not by the feds.
A Sept. 27 letter to Boxer from CSB interim director William Wright charges that state and local authorities may have destroyed important evidence from the Danvers blast, including the steam valves on a solvent tank later believed to be responsible for the release of flammable vapor linked to the explosion. Wright's letter charges that "State and local authorities brought heavy equipment, such as front-end loaders, into the site to rapidly clear the debris field, without apparent regard to the possible evidentiary value the debris and damaged equipment might have in establishing the causes of the accident."
Kurt Schwartz, the state undersecretary for law enforcement and fire services, dismisses the charges as just another volley in the turf war. He insists that the Danvers investigation was never compromised by the loss of essential evidence, and notes that state and federal investigators arrived independently at an identical root cause of the blast. He does acknowledge a communications breakdown between the state and CSB, however. Schwartz says he intends to meet personally with CSB officials to develop protocols ensuring timely access to accident sites. He also wants to develop joint guidelines for removing and testing evidence. Massachusetts fire chief president Willette also says he is eager to meet with CSB officials.
Massachusetts needs the services of the Chemical Safety Board, and not only in an emergency. The agency employs chemical and mechanical engineers, blast modelers, and other experts not normally found in local firehouses or the state fire marshal's office. State efforts to create a role for chemical process inspectors in the state's fire marshal's office could benefit from CSB training and education functions. In April, the CSB is also expected to release an analysis of the state's fire codes and how they might be contributing to ongoing inspection gaps at the state's thousands of chemical storage and processing sites. The public should be looking to local fire authorities and lawmakers for solutions, not defensiveness or denials.
The explosion in Danvers was alarming enough without the subsequent blowups between state, local, and federal officials. 