Practical Facilities Tips, News & Advice.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) recently offered an update on its continuing investigation into a fatal explosion and fire on July 29 at the Horizon Biofuels facility in Fremont, Neb. “Preliminary evidence points to a combustible wood dust explosion, a well-known—and completely avoidable—hazard in wood processing,” CSB Chairperson Steve Owens said in […]
The West Fertilizer Company in West, Texas operated out of a building that was originally constructed in 1961, and the facility was expanded, piecemeal, over the next 52 years. However, its underlying construction remained the same: a wood-framed building with asphalt shingles and plywood bins for storing fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate (FGAN) and other bulk agricultural […]
The tragic explosion of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate at the West, Texas, distribution facility in April 2013 has had a powerful impact on the direction of the EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act’s Risk Management Program (RMP, CAA Section 112(r)).