Tell me if you have heard this one before. An industry endangers the public because their products are dangerous to produce, store, transport, or use. They further threaten public safety because these very limited liability corporations do everything possible to hide the dangers. Lie. Smear the people who uncover their deceit. Bribe politicians.
I found a perfect example from the great state of Texas.
April, 2013: A synthetic fertilizer plant in the town of West explodes with megaton force, killing first responders trying to keep a fire at the plant from spreading into town. This short video will refresh your memory.
When the dust settled, 15 lost their lives, over a 100 were injured, and several hundreds of buildings damaged or destroyed. If this had been an act of political terrorism, the feds would be out hunting the perpetrators with drones. Corporate negligence and incompetence risks only a slap on the wrist. And big legal and lobbyist bills.
May, 2013: The state fire marshal says these volunteer fire fighters did not know how to fight a blaze like this one.
The Texas State Fire Marshal's Office concluded in a report published in May that members of the West Volunteer Fire Department arrived at the scene that day unprepared for the dangers.
The Texas State Fire Marshal also determined that strategies and tactics utilized by the WVFD were not appropriate for the situation and unnecessarily exposed the firefighters, many of whom have brought claims against the CF defendants in this matter, to extreme risks, CF Industries says in the motion.
Thank goodness for state regulators. Too bad the Texas State Fire Marshal does not educate local fire departments about potential dangers in their midst.
October, 2013: An accident investigation revealed a bevy of safety violations.
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration has cited a West, Texas, fertilizer company with 24 safety violations springing from an April 17 explosion that killed 15 people and flattened much of the town.
Adair Grain Inc., the owner of West Fertilizer Co., could face fines up to $118,300 under the law. The fertilizer firm is a retail agricultural supply store and warehouse, similar to 6,000 other firms spread throughout U.S. farm communities (C&EN, April 22, page 8).
The notice of violation was publicly released on Oct. 10 by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the day after it was issued by OSHA. The violation notice was not made public, Boxer said, because the agency is closed as part of the federal government shutdown.
(BTW, kudos to Senator Boxer.)
Blow up half a town and kill 15 after cutting corners on safety and you could get slapped with a fine of $118,000! The owners of the company are laughing their asses off. That is probably not even one day's worth of revenue. Now all they have to do is beat back the civil lawsuits and contribute to the corruption of public officials.
July, 2014: The companies responsible for the blast spread massive cow patties in court.
WACO, Texas -- Two fertilizer companies sued following a deadly Texas explosion are claiming the small town deserves blame for failing to properly train volunteer firefighters and first responders, who made up most of the 15 people killed by the blast.
El Dorado Chemical Co. and CF Industries argued in a state district court in Waco that the city of West, which has about 2,800 people, had insufficient protocols in place to battle the April 2013 blaze at West Fertilizer Co. that triggered the explosion.
The fertilizer suppliers are now seeking to have the city designated as a responsible third party in lawsuits filed against the companies, the Waco-Tribune Herald reported Saturday.
Your Honor, please make these suckers share our liability. After all, they were gullible enough to welcome our business into their community and believe our sincerely-held beliefs that our products and processes were safe. Judge, would you like your campaign contributions in small or large bills?
The companies even blamed the town for allowing the companies that close to residential areas.
"...because it failed to protect its citizens by allowing through its zoning authority schools and a nursing home to operate in a close proximity to the plant."
Judges have been kind to the corporate killers. It even gave the Dallas Morning News indigestion.
But confidentiality agreements in the case may ensure the public never knows what happened or who was responsible. A judge has approved secrecy pacts among various litigators in at least 15 lawsuits resulting from the 2013 explosion, according to a report published this week by Dallas Morning News staff writer Sue Ambrose.
Those deals allow for the destruction or sealing of documents containing potentially damning evidence of negligence or wrongdoing. Keeping some information confidential, to protect specific trade secrets, for example, makes sense. But some lawyers argue that state District Judge Jim Meyer has gone too far, approving confidentiality agreements more sweeping than those in lawsuits against GM related to faulty ignition switches and raising suspicions of a deliberate effort to hide culpability from public view.
So, the companies responsible for the blast blame the town for being unprepared while successfully arguing in court to keep the public in the dark. Disingenuousness grows mighty big in the Lone Star State.
Meanwhile, the synthetic fertilizer industry is dumping cash by the barrel to buy off current Texas Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott. Even the Koch roaches are getting in on the fun.
AUSTIN — Five months after an ammonium nitrate explosion that killed 15 people in West, Attorney General Greg Abbott received a $25,000 contribution from a first-time donor to his political campaigns — the head of Koch Industries’ fertilizer division. The donor, Chase Koch, is the son of one of the billionaire brothers atop Koch Industries’ politically influential business empire.
Abbott, who has since been criticized for allowing Texas chemical facilities to keep secret the contents of their plants, received more than $75,000 from Koch interests after the April 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. storage and distribution facility, campaign finance records filed with the state showed.
The West accident focused public attention on the storage of potentially dangerous chemicals across Texas and regulatory gaps in prevention, data-gathering, enforcement and disclosure to prevent explosions in the future. In addition to the 15 deaths, scores of people were injured, and homes and businesses were leveled.
Fear not. Greg Abbott is very concerned about political terrorism.
The issue has re-emerged for Abbott in his run for governor. The Republican nominee recently declared that records on what chemicals the facilities stored could remain hidden, citing state laws meant to deter potential terrorist threats.
There is something rotten in the heart of Texas if they elect Abbott to follow in the footsteps of George W. Bush and Rick Perry. You could even argue that Abbott will be even worse.
Abbott contends his opinion, issued in May, strikes a balance. On Tuesday, he called it a “win-win” that keeps information about large chemical inventories off the website of the Department of State Health Services but doesn’t forbid homeowners from asking companies in their neighborhoods what they store.
He said companies should respond within 10 days, but it’s not clear what penalties, if any, private companies face if they decline to tell a member of the public what chemicals are on site.
Balance means you can ask a company about potential hazards in their inventories and the companies can ignore you. How does one say something like this with straight face? Sociopathy, Texas Style. You cannot terminate a pregnancy in Texas but you can kill first responders and other unsuspecting citizens with impunity as a tightly held corporation.
Here is some more sociopathy, Texas style. Abbott appears to be cruising to victory over Wendy Davis according to recent polls.
In the latest poll of 4,320 Texans, released on July 28 by CBS, The New York Times, and British pollsters YouGov, Abbott is romping ahead with an impressive 17-point margin. Breaking down the numbers, 50% of respondents said they would definitely vote for Abbott, with another 4% saying they'd lean that way. By contrast, Davis only pulled in 34% of solid support, with an extra 3% leaning towards her. If these numbers are correct, then there are only 9% of voters still up for grabs, and over half of them say they have no plans to vote.
Adding to her woes, Davis is running low on cash while corporate contributions continue to flood into Abbott.
Davis' campaign has tried to find fresh traction by pointing out that Abbott has consistently issued business-friendly opinions – most recently, effectively declaring the chemical stockpiles of fertilizer plants like those owned by the Kochs to be a state secret. But unless she can find a way to raise the money to get that message out, that double-digit polling deficit could translate into an election-day disaster.
I would be remiss, therefore, if I did not encourage folks to
support Wendy Davis. Do it to honor the memories of the volunteer fire department of West, Texas.