Federal safety officials investigating last year's chemical blast in Danvers yesterday faulted Massachusetts regulations governing storage of explosive materials, saying they do not give the public the right to challenge storage or use of potentially dangerous chemicals in their neighborhoods.
The US Chemical Safety Board said a Danvers factory, jointly operated by ink maker CAI Inc. and paint company Arnel Inc., was first licensed in 1944 to store 250 gallons of lacquer. The board said that last year, 11,500 gallons of flammable chemicals were on-site without public input or safety reviews.
"Our concern is that once the license has been issued, there are no regulations that require a rereview if a licensee increases the quantity," said lead investigator John Vorderbrueggen.
But the state Department of Fire Services and Danvers town officials said separately that they had complied with state and local rules governing safety and public input into the use of explosive chemicals over the years.
"I think they are wrong," said Danvers Fire Chief James Tutko.
Tutko said his department inspected the plant in 1991, 2001, and 2002. "Aside from outright rewriting of state laws and codes, there is nothing more that we can do," he said.
Danvers Town Manager Wayne Marquis said the Board of Selectmen publicly reviewed the license in the decades since 1944.
"Each time the license was amended, it required a public hearing," Marquis said. But he added that he welcomed an increase in public involvement.
The Department of Fire Services said inspection was the responsibility of the town, not the state. "The fact that the state was not required by law to conduct this type of review or assessment does not mean that there is a gap in state law or the state fire code," the agency said.
Vorderbrueggen also said in a conference call with reporters that new testing confirmed preliminary conclusions reached in May about the cause of the blast.
"We have confirmed that the mixture was sufficiently volatile to cause this explosion," he said. "A static spark from rubbing your foot on a carpet is enough to ignite these vapors."
He said a steam valve left open heated the chemicals and caused explosive vapors to accumulate inside the building. A spark from an unknown source ignited the vapors, he said.
The Chemical Safety Board repeated its conclusion that the two companies shut down a ventilation system at night in violation of state and federal workplace safety rules and said it has ruled out natural gas or propane gas leaks as the cause.
W. Paul Needham, a lawyer for CAI Inc., said that the company does not dispute that workers routinely shut off the ventilation system, but that it does not accept any other conclusion by the board, he said. "We don't think they've taken a good enough look at gas," he said. "We just don't think it could have happened the way they said it could."
But while officials took a defensive stance, some Danvers residents embraced the call for an expanded public voice in licensing. In the explosion's aftermath, some residents formed Safe Area For Everyone and are now pushing for a town hazardous-material oversight board.
"We are working with them to get an oversight committee for the future, to look at all the companies that handle hazardous materials in Danvers," said Susan Tropeano, a Danversport resident who also said she was not aware of any past public hearings involving the two companies.
Marquis said 18 of the 100 families whose houses were destroyed have not been able to return to the neighborhood.
Tutko has created a new program under which each of the town's 36 companies with hazardous material licenses will be inspected annually.
John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.
