Bayer CropScience officials repeatedly refused to give local emergency responders details about last week's explosion and fire, according to recordings of phone calls between the company's Institute plant and Kanawha County's Metro 911 Center.
CHARLESTON, W.Va.- Bayer CropScience officials repeatedly refused to give local emergency responders details about last week's explosion and fire, according to recordings of phone calls between the company's Institute plant and Kanawha County's Metro 911 Center. Plant officials told dispatchers that there was an "emergency" in progress, but said the company instructed them not to provide more details. For several hours, plant officials would not say what had happened or where in the plant the incident had occurred, the recordings show. "Well, I can't give out any information, like I say, we'll contact you with the, with the proper information," a plant gate worker who identified himself only as Steve told a 911 dispatcher. That comment came when emergency responders called the plant at 10:39 p.m., about 14 minutes after Bayer said the explosion occurred on Aug. 28. One worker, Barry Withrow, a 45-year-old father of two from Cross Lanes, was killed. A second plant worker was seriously injured. Thousands of area residents were advised to take shelter in their homes because of possible fumes from the fire. Dale Petry, Kanawha County's emergency director, said that local responders weren't sure what to do, because Bayer gave them precious little information for several hours after the explosion. "We didn't know what to do," Petry said. "We couldn't get anything out of them. We want to protect the community, and we need more information to do that." Bayer officials did not return repeated phone calls for this story. Late Thursday afternoon, the company issued a prepared statement that said it "shared all available information with Metro 911 as that information became available over the course of the incident." "The transcripts of the calls to Metro 911 which were released today represent only a portion of the communication between Bayer CropScience and emergency response officials during this event," the statement said. During the first 911 call last week, the dispatcher asked what had occurred, and the plant worker said, "Well, I haven't got instructions as to what to tell everybody yet." "We just have an emergency alarm in progress right now," the plant worker said. "And we'll contact you as soon as I get the information." Three minutes later, the Metro dispatcher called back at about the same time that a plant worker picked up the phone to call 911. The worker said Bayer needed an ambulance immediately for a burn victim. Again, the dispatcher asked for more information. "Well, I can't give out any information until I get my information," the plant worker responded. About a half-hour later, Bayer officials called 911 again with an update. "We have an emergency at the Bayer CropScience plant, and the only information I can give you is that ... you might want to alert the community," the Bayer official said in that 11:15 p.m. call. "My supervisor informed me to tell you to alert the community that there is an emergency at the plant right now." The dispatcher asked for more information, and specifically asked if the explosion had occurred in the unit that produces the pesticide Larvin. "I'm only allowed to tell you that we have an emergency in the plant," the Bayer worker said. About 20 minutes later, at 11:35 p.m., frustrated emergency officials issued a shelter-in-place advisory for South Charleston, Dunbar, Nitro, St. Albans and Institute. Over the next 1 1/2 hours, Bayer officials called the Metro 911 center four more times. In each call, plant workers reported only that there had been an emergency, that plant teams were responding to that emergency, and that they would call back with an update. Sometime around 1 a.m., county officials were given more details about where the explosion occurred and what chemicals might have been released from the plant. Bayer officials called Metro 911 four more times between 1:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. Each time, plant workers repeated that, "We just wanted to keep you informed that our emergency team is still responding to our emergency." During a community meeting in Institute Thursday night, longtime local emergency official Mark Wolford blasted Bayer, saying that the company's in-place emergency team had simply ignored requests by local officials for information during the event. "We have to have adequate, thorough and timely information to make decisions," Wolford said. "We didn't get it." But Institute Volunteer Fire Department Chief Andre Higginbotham said that he was at the plant gate during the incident and was receiving regular updates from Bayer's emergency team. Higginbotham, who is a Bayer employee, said that it was his decision not to issue an earlier shelter-in-place advisory to residents. Under the county's emergency plan, Higginbotham was the on-scene local, non-plant incident commander. "I felt like at that time it was safe," Higginbotham said. "We were constantly relaying information back and forth with each other." Federal records released Thursday showed that Bayer did not report the incident to the National Response Center - the clearinghouse for reporting hazardous-materials accidents to the government - until 12:37 a.m., more than two hours after the explosion. The report indicated "a release of material due to a fire and explosion in the water deluge system." The National Response Center, run by the Coast Guard for other federal agencies, received two other reports about the Bayer incident. Both came in before Bayer's own report. At 11:15 p.m., Institute native Catherine Davis called the NRC after hearing about the explosion from her mother, who still lives in Institute. "This happens all the time," said Davis, who now lives in Arizona. "They never tell anyone. "We'd go outside, and some crazy flames would be shooting up or we'd smell something and we'd call the plant and they'd say that nothing happened," Davis said. "But then, three hours later, you hear the emergency broadcast." And at 11:34 p.m., Ryan Raner of Vancouver, Wash., called the NRC after hearing about it from "close companions" in the Institute area, according to the NRC report of Raner's call. by Ken Ward Jr.
September 5, 2008
Residents fuming over lack of details from Bayer plant
INSTITUTE, W.Va. - Angry western Kanawha County residents complained Thursday night that chemical company officials and local emergency authorities told them too little too late about the explosion and fire a week ago at Bayer CropScience's Institute plant. Nearly 100 people turned out to ask questions and voice their opinions at a community forum sponsored by the group People Concerned About MIC. The organization is named for methyl isocyanate, a toxic chemical responsible for the 1984 Bhopal disaster and a major pesticide ingredient used at the Institute plant. "I've lived through three horrible blasts, and this last one was the worst one," said Warren Ferguson, one of a core group of longtime Institute residents who spoke out at the evening meeting. Donna Willis, another longtime resident, said government officials have never done much to help police the local chemical companies. "I've been imprisoned in my house with my children and no one will stand up for me," Willis said. Maya Nye, a St. Albans native who organized Thursday's meeting, distributed a list of questions about what chemicals were released, and why residents weren't told more by Bayer. "Why was confusing information given to the community during the first hour after the explosion?" Nye said. "Why did it take over an hour to initiate the shelter-in-place notice?" But Bayer officials declined an invitation to provide a speaker to answer such questions, though some residents wondered if a company representative secretly sat in on the meeting. Through the Charles Ryan Associates public relations firm, Bayer issued a statement Thursday afternoon that said the company "only recently learned of this evening's forum." "At this point in time, there is no additional information available beyond what has already been covered by the media, and we have therefore not offered to participate in tonight's forum," the statement said. Bayer officials did not return repeated phone calls Wednesday or Thursday. The Thursday night meeting was held at the student union on the West Virginia State University campus adjacent to the sprawling Institute chemical plant. Some students and faculty joined local residents at the forum, as did a few representatives of state environmental groups. Jesse Johnson, the Mountain Party's nominee in the 2008 race for West Virginia governor, spoke at the meeting and complained that media covering the event would not mention that he was the only candidate to attend. "This is an example of what happens when you have a government that is open for business," Johnson said, mocking Gov. Joe Manchin's now-defunct state slogan. By Ken Ward Jr.
September 5, 2008 , West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Community furious over Bayer stonewalling after explosion
By Scott Finn
Last week, an explosion at a Kanawha County chemical plant killed one worker, severely burned another and forced thousands of residents to shelter in place.
Last night, about 100 people gathered at West Virginia State University, looking for answers about the explosion at the Bayer CropScience plant - especially this: Why did it take more than an hour for emergency officials to call for residents to shelter in place?
Emergency officials blame plant managers, who refused to tell them what was going on inside the plant.
Company officials weren't able to defend themselves, because they declined to show up at the community meeting.
Last Thursday night, a few minutes before 10:30 pm, a huge explosion at the Bayer CropScience's plant in Institute rocked houses that were miles away and sent a 100-ft fireball into the air.
Extremely dangerous chemicals are stored at the Bayer CropScience facility in Institute, including MIC, the same chemical that killed more than 3,000 people in 1984, after a leak from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.
In Institute, only a chain link fence separates the Bayer facility from the state's only historically-black college, West Virginia State University. Hundreds of people live nearby, and thousands are within a five-mile radius of the plant.
When there's a chemical leak - especially some kind of explosion - time is crucial. People need to know whether to evacuate or to shelter in place -- turn off their air conditioners, duct tape their windows and stuff towels in their doors.
But almost 15 minutes after the explosion, the Kanawha County Metro 911 Center still hasn't heard anything from Bayer officials. Finally, someone gets ahold of a worker named Steve at the front gate, according to a recording of 911 calls obtained by the Charleston Gazette:
Dispatcher: Anybody call from the plant yet? Phone ringing Steve: Main gate, Steve. Dispatcher: Hey, this is Metro 911. What do we have, do you know? Steve: Well, I haven't got instructions as to what to tell everybody yet. But we just have an emergency alarm in progress right now. Dispatcher: I've got the county emergency services director trying to find something out. Do you know what areas of the plant or anything? Steve: Well, I can't give out any information. Like I say, we'll contact you with the proper information.
At 11:15 pm, almost an hour after the explosion, the 911 dispatcher tries again to get more information out of Steve:
Steve: What it is, we have an emergency at Bayer CropScience plant, and the only information I can give you is that we'll and you might want to alert the community, my supervisor informed me to tell you to alert the community there is an emergency in the plant right now. Dispatcher: Just real quick we have reports it was in the Larvin unit. Are you able to confirm or deny that? Steve: No, I'm only allowed to tell you that we have an emergency in the plant.
The response, or lack of it, infuriated Mark Wolford, a long-time firefighter and former public safety director for Kanawha County. He represented the Kanawha County Commission at a community meeting held at West Virginia State.
"What's going on? The response is, we have an emergency in the facility and I can't tell you anything more than that. I think everybody in this areas knew they had a heck of an emergency in the facility when they heard the boom and saw the big fireball," Wolford said.
No one from Bayer attended the meeting. In an e-mail, a company spokesman said that they had no new information to share that hadn't already been reported in the media.
Some people at the forum, such as Joline Brady of Scott Depot, said Bayer officials should be held responsible - perhaps criminally responsible.
It's not without precedent. Wolford told of another leak from the Institute facility in 1985, when a company official tried to deny that MIC had leaked from the plant.
"I'm not saying you need to do that to this plant manager," he said. "But I'll tell you what: something needs to be done. We need to take some kind of action, when an incident occurs, the information is passed on in a timely manner to the Metro 911 center so we can tell you all what to do."
With no company officials present, some people at the meeting directed their anger at Andre Higginbotham, an employee at the Bayer plant and chief of the Institute.
One woman criticized his decision not to call a shelter in place - which other county officials ended up calling later:
Higginbotham: I have a choice to make here as incident commander for the town of Institute: Do I call a shelter in place? There was no smell, no odor. We had parameter people going out, checking for odors, and we didn't have an odor at this time. I was talking to EOC uptown, and I said, it seems pretty safe for the town of Institute, we're not picking up any odors. Woman: Based on smell? Based on smell and the wind? This was an explosion. And you felt comfortable in not sheltering, and not evacuating, based on a smell? Higginbotham: Yes, I felt comfortable.
Third-party gubernatorial candidate Jesse Johnson, who also lives in the area, asked Higginbotham a question that was on a lot of people's minds: what chemicals were they exposed to? Company officials haven't been specific, except to say the fire broke out in a tank full of waste products from the production of Larvin, an insecticide that kills bugs and their eggs:
Johnson: What chemicals were released into the atmosphere for this community? Higginbotham: I'll let the Bayer officials answer that question. Johnson: And when will we find out the answer to that question.
Several people at the meeting brought up who else was not there: no one from Governor Joe Manchin's office, no state legislators, and not even the leadership of West Virginia State University. Here's Donna Willis, a long-time resident of Institute.
"It doesn't matter that we're allowing students from all over the country to apply at West Virginia State University," Willis said. "And where are you, West Virginia State University? Where are their representatives? To sit up there and say, we're taking other people's children's lives in our hands."
Willis says the constant orders of shelter-in-place - and the fear of chemical leaks, explosions and other exposure - make her a prisoner in her own home.
"You know, when you imprison a person in jail un-righteously, when they get out, they sue you and they get millions of dollars," she said.
"I've been imprisoned in my house with my children for years. And no one, no one will stand up for me. So year after year, we breathe this stuff in, we make the calls, and we complain and complain and complain, and the company gets, maybe every once in a while, tagged with a money fine, $15,000 for this, $20,000 for that."
Metro 911 wasn't the only agency kept in the dark. Company officials at first refused to allow in Mike Dorsey, chief of homeland security and emergency management for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. He remembers getting in after 3 a.m. - almost five hours after the explosion.
He says the explosion could have been much worse. But it revealed dangerous weaknesses in the current emergency response system.
"It's absolutely crucial that the private industry and the governmental agencies all be working together," he said. "And the communications not only between the responders but with the general public need to be improved, so that people can know the true extent of the threat they're facing."
There was another theme at this meeting: Déjà vu.
"And it seems like old home week," Wolford said. "I hate to say this, but 25 years ago, when I had black hair, I was standing here, saying the same thing. And you know what? It's pitiful. We haven't got any better. We have not got any better."
Wolford says the Kanawha County Commission is promising a full investigation into what happened - in case the next time there's a chemical accident, we're not so lucky.
