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Letter to Senators Collins and Lieberman
Re-route, Phase Out Chemicals of Mass Destruction
September 13, 2005
Dear Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman,
The overriding lesson to be drawn from both the September 11th attacks and Hurricane Katrina is to take credible warnings seriously. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, for months prior to September 11th the White House received warnings that “Bin Laden Attacks May be Imminent,” and that there was “a high probability of near-term ‘spectacular’ terrorist attacks” and “that something ‘very, very, very, very’ big was about to happen.”
In New Orleans a 2002 Times-Picayune headline said it all, “The Big One; A major hurricane could decimate the region, but flooding from even a moderate storm could kill thousands. It's just a matter of time.” University and government experts warned that a storm hitting New Orleans could leave “hundreds of thousands homeless…survivors will end up trapped on roofs…floodwater could become contaminated with sewage and with toxic chemicals…With few homes left undamaged, Red Cross and FEMA officials will have to find property for long-term temporary housing for a possible 1 million refugees.”
Today, four years after September 11th, sobering warnings continue to go unheeded regarding the vulnerability of U.S. chemical plants and chemical rail cars to terrorist attacks. The potential for loss of life and economic disruption from such an attack is staggering. --- The 20,000 who died in the 1984 Bhopal disaster made that horribly clear. Warnings since September 11th include:
*** In March 2002, The Washington Post reported on a 2001 U.S. Army Surgeon General study which estimated that 900,000 to 2.4 million people could be killed or injured in a terrorist attack on a U.S. chemical plant in a densely populated area.
*** In October, 2003 a senior scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, testified that more than 100,000 people could be killed or injured within the first 30 minutes of a terrorist attack on one rail car of hazardous chemicals passing through a major city such as Washington, D.C. He warned that “lethally exposed people can die at the rate of 100 per second.”
*** Prior to the horrific attacks on passenger trains in Madrid in March 2004 and London in July of this year, an FBI specialist in weapons of mass destruction (WMD), addressing a chemical industry conference in June 2003 warned, “You’ve heard about sarin and other chemical weapons in the news. But it’s far easier to attack a rail car full of toxic industrial chemicals than it is to compromise the security of a military base and obtain these materials.”
*** In July of 2004 the Homeland Security Council estimated that an attack on a chlorine facility could kill 17,500 people, seriously injure an additional 10,000, send 100,000 more to the hospital and cause an additional 70,000 evacuations.
What has been done to address this? In testimony this January before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, former Deputy Homeland Security advisor to the President, Richard Falkenrath said, “the federal government has made no material reduction in the inherent vulnerability of hazardous chemical targets inside the United States. Doing so should be the highest critical infrastructure protection priority for the Department of Homeland Security in the next two years."
In August, Richard Clarke, former counter terrorism coordinator for the National Security Council, criticized both the administration and the Republican-controlled Congress for not moving chemical security legislation, "Congress has diddled for three years on a Chemical Security Act," he said.
Chemical Plant Security:
While the oil and chemical industries have succeeded in holding off comprehensive security rules since September 11th, they now say they will support regulations if the new rules “endorse” their own voluntary fence-line security measures. These site security measures should have been in place before September 11th. Site security will not stop determined terrorists. Only by substituting safer technologies and processes can we eliminate these risks.
It is essential that Congress now enact new safety standards that require the conversion of dangerous technologies to safer chemicals or processes whereever alternatives exist. This is not unlike 2001 legislation authored by Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) which was unanimously adopted in July of 2002 by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It is also similar in many respects to a June 2002 proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which was scuttled by the White House in the fall of 2002.
Much of the responsibility for the last four years of inaction rests with Bush administration. Administration officials such as Philip J. Perry and Karl Rove helped lead White House opposition to chemical security regulations and legislation. According to informed sources Perry played a key role in scuttling the EPA’s 2002 proposal when he was at the Office of Management and Budget. Perry is now General Counsel to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the likely implementing agency of new legislation. In writing a new law Congress should assume that new legislation which only contains discretionary authority will NOT be implemented by this administration. Therefore, workable legislation must specifically require the substitution, conversion or phase out of inherently dangerous technologies.
Despite years of warnings, accidents and now terrorist threats, oil and chemical manufacturers such as Dow, Dupont, Exxon, Shell, BP and others have mounted aggressive lobbying campaigns to oppose any requirement to use safer available technologies. This ideological opposition to new safety standards flies in the face of the widespread availability and use of safer chemicals and processes. For example: Two thirds of U.S. refineries already use safer alternatives to the ultra-hazardous hydrofluoric acid (HF) but one third still use HF. Many publicly owned sewage treatment plants are converting to chlorine-free technologies. Washington, D.C. eliminated the use of chlorine gas at the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant within eight weeks following the September 11th attacks for less than .50 a customer per year. In fact, one of the top recommendations of a January GAO (GAO-05-165)report was: "Replacing gaseous chemicals used in wastewater treatment with less hazardous alternatives."
The good news is that virtually all of these risks are preventable. The key to addressing this problem quickly is to prioritize the worst threats. There are about 140 hazardous chemicals regulated under the EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP). According to a 2000 EPA report only five of these chemicals account for the majority of facilities that pose a risk to neighboring communities. Of these chlorine and ammonia account for more than 50 percent of those risks. If for any reason a safer alternative is not immediately available, smaller quantity storage practices can be adopted to eliminate a catastrophic release.
Chlorine is the worst-case disaster scenario at approximately 60 percent of the 100 U.S. chemical plants that each put one million or more people at risk. According to chemical facility reports submitted to the EPA the catastrophic release of chlorine gas can remain dangerous for up to 14 miles in an urban zone and up to 25 miles in rural terrain.
Chemical plant workers and trade unions have an enormous stake in the safety of their workplace. They have enormous hands-on experience that should also be tapped by formally involving them in developing security plans and implementing hazard reduction.
Rail Security:
According to the EPA the reason so many facilities pose a threat to communities of a million or more is “due to the prevalent use of 90-ton rail tank cars for chlorine storage in the U.S.” A 2000 risk assessment by Argonne National Laboratory found that 82 percent of the fatality risk of transporting hazardous materials was borne by rail. This is due to the large quantities of toxic-by-inhalation (TIH) substances shipped by rail. An April, 2003 GAO report (GAO-03-435) cited Department of Transportation data saying that 95 percent of the ton miles of TIH substances shipped in the U.S. are shipped by rail.
Furthermore, 90 percent of the transportation risk of all TIH materials is represented by just six chemicals according to Argonne: chlorine, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, fuming sulfuric acid and fuming nitric acid. Argonne also estimated that chlorine accounts for 58.5 percent of TIH risk of fatality. Once again, the prioritization of the most shipped hazardous substances will facilitate a rapid implementation of the most immediate and least costly policy option: re-routing dangerous cargoes around sensitive areas.
The widespread presence of graffiti on freight trains, including markings on 90-ton railroad tank cars is proof of the ease with which they can be accessed. Securing thousands of miles of U.S. rail lines is a virtual impossibility. The Madrid attacks in 2004 and the London attacks in July were a horrific wake up call to this vulnerability. The deadly rail car accident in South Carolina in January that killed ten people was further evidence of how lethal even a partial release from a chlorine tank car can be.
In June Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) introduced “The Hazardous Materials Vulnerability Reduction Act of 2005” (S. 1256) which would require the Secretary of DHS to regulate the shipment by rail of extremely hazardous materials (EHMs) and re-route EHMs around designated “high-threat corridors” with common sense exceptions. This approach is the most effective at risk reduction and also the least costly to taxpayers. DHS proposal to install cameras along tracks is expensive (more than $9 million in Washington, D.C. alone) and more importantly ineffective in stopping attacks as we saw in the London bombings.
Re-routing around densely populated areas as was enacted by the District of Columbia earlier this year is an immediate and effective step that can be taken to eliminate these terrorist targets and should be implemented nationally as soon as possible. Re-routing should be done in tandem with a comprehensive chemical security program which phases out unnecessary risks such as chlorine by converting to safer available alternatives. Where alternatives are not currently available, smaller storage quantities and shipments can be utilized while new technologies are developed.
The time for legislation that will only satisfy the oil and chemical industry is over. Congress must enact legislation that will eliminate hazards not simply continue to gamble on more guards and higher fences. That means enacting a law that protects communities from more tragedies by requiring the use of solutions already in use.
Sincerely,
Rick Hind
Legislative Director,
Greenpeace Toxics Campaign
September 13, 2005
Dear Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman,
The overriding lesson to be drawn from both the September 11th attacks and Hurricane Katrina is to take credible warnings seriously. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, for months prior to September 11th the White House received warnings that “Bin Laden Attacks May be Imminent,” and that there was “a high probability of near-term ‘spectacular’ terrorist attacks” and “that something ‘very, very, very, very’ big was about to happen.”
In New Orleans a 2002 Times-Picayune headline said it all, “The Big One; A major hurricane could decimate the region, but flooding from even a moderate storm could kill thousands. It's just a matter of time.” University and government experts warned that a storm hitting New Orleans could leave “hundreds of thousands homeless…survivors will end up trapped on roofs…floodwater could become contaminated with sewage and with toxic chemicals…With few homes left undamaged, Red Cross and FEMA officials will have to find property for long-term temporary housing for a possible 1 million refugees.”
Today, four years after September 11th, sobering warnings continue to go unheeded regarding the vulnerability of U.S. chemical plants and chemical rail cars to terrorist attacks. The potential for loss of life and economic disruption from such an attack is staggering. --- The 20,000 who died in the 1984 Bhopal disaster made that horribly clear. Warnings since September 11th include:
*** In March 2002, The Washington Post reported on a 2001 U.S. Army Surgeon General study which estimated that 900,000 to 2.4 million people could be killed or injured in a terrorist attack on a U.S. chemical plant in a densely populated area.
*** In October, 2003 a senior scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, testified that more than 100,000 people could be killed or injured within the first 30 minutes of a terrorist attack on one rail car of hazardous chemicals passing through a major city such as Washington, D.C. He warned that “lethally exposed people can die at the rate of 100 per second.”
*** Prior to the horrific attacks on passenger trains in Madrid in March 2004 and London in July of this year, an FBI specialist in weapons of mass destruction (WMD), addressing a chemical industry conference in June 2003 warned, “You’ve heard about sarin and other chemical weapons in the news. But it’s far easier to attack a rail car full of toxic industrial chemicals than it is to compromise the security of a military base and obtain these materials.”
*** In July of 2004 the Homeland Security Council estimated that an attack on a chlorine facility could kill 17,500 people, seriously injure an additional 10,000, send 100,000 more to the hospital and cause an additional 70,000 evacuations.
What has been done to address this? In testimony this January before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, former Deputy Homeland Security advisor to the President, Richard Falkenrath said, “the federal government has made no material reduction in the inherent vulnerability of hazardous chemical targets inside the United States. Doing so should be the highest critical infrastructure protection priority for the Department of Homeland Security in the next two years."
In August, Richard Clarke, former counter terrorism coordinator for the National Security Council, criticized both the administration and the Republican-controlled Congress for not moving chemical security legislation, "Congress has diddled for three years on a Chemical Security Act," he said.
Chemical Plant Security:
While the oil and chemical industries have succeeded in holding off comprehensive security rules since September 11th, they now say they will support regulations if the new rules “endorse” their own voluntary fence-line security measures. These site security measures should have been in place before September 11th. Site security will not stop determined terrorists. Only by substituting safer technologies and processes can we eliminate these risks.
It is essential that Congress now enact new safety standards that require the conversion of dangerous technologies to safer chemicals or processes whereever alternatives exist. This is not unlike 2001 legislation authored by Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) which was unanimously adopted in July of 2002 by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It is also similar in many respects to a June 2002 proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which was scuttled by the White House in the fall of 2002.
Much of the responsibility for the last four years of inaction rests with Bush administration. Administration officials such as Philip J. Perry and Karl Rove helped lead White House opposition to chemical security regulations and legislation. According to informed sources Perry played a key role in scuttling the EPA’s 2002 proposal when he was at the Office of Management and Budget. Perry is now General Counsel to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the likely implementing agency of new legislation. In writing a new law Congress should assume that new legislation which only contains discretionary authority will NOT be implemented by this administration. Therefore, workable legislation must specifically require the substitution, conversion or phase out of inherently dangerous technologies.
Despite years of warnings, accidents and now terrorist threats, oil and chemical manufacturers such as Dow, Dupont, Exxon, Shell, BP and others have mounted aggressive lobbying campaigns to oppose any requirement to use safer available technologies. This ideological opposition to new safety standards flies in the face of the widespread availability and use of safer chemicals and processes. For example: Two thirds of U.S. refineries already use safer alternatives to the ultra-hazardous hydrofluoric acid (HF) but one third still use HF. Many publicly owned sewage treatment plants are converting to chlorine-free technologies. Washington, D.C. eliminated the use of chlorine gas at the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant within eight weeks following the September 11th attacks for less than .50 a customer per year. In fact, one of the top recommendations of a January GAO (GAO-05-165)report was: "Replacing gaseous chemicals used in wastewater treatment with less hazardous alternatives."
The good news is that virtually all of these risks are preventable. The key to addressing this problem quickly is to prioritize the worst threats. There are about 140 hazardous chemicals regulated under the EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP). According to a 2000 EPA report only five of these chemicals account for the majority of facilities that pose a risk to neighboring communities. Of these chlorine and ammonia account for more than 50 percent of those risks. If for any reason a safer alternative is not immediately available, smaller quantity storage practices can be adopted to eliminate a catastrophic release.
Chlorine is the worst-case disaster scenario at approximately 60 percent of the 100 U.S. chemical plants that each put one million or more people at risk. According to chemical facility reports submitted to the EPA the catastrophic release of chlorine gas can remain dangerous for up to 14 miles in an urban zone and up to 25 miles in rural terrain.
Chemical plant workers and trade unions have an enormous stake in the safety of their workplace. They have enormous hands-on experience that should also be tapped by formally involving them in developing security plans and implementing hazard reduction.
Rail Security:
According to the EPA the reason so many facilities pose a threat to communities of a million or more is “due to the prevalent use of 90-ton rail tank cars for chlorine storage in the U.S.” A 2000 risk assessment by Argonne National Laboratory found that 82 percent of the fatality risk of transporting hazardous materials was borne by rail. This is due to the large quantities of toxic-by-inhalation (TIH) substances shipped by rail. An April, 2003 GAO report (GAO-03-435) cited Department of Transportation data saying that 95 percent of the ton miles of TIH substances shipped in the U.S. are shipped by rail.
Furthermore, 90 percent of the transportation risk of all TIH materials is represented by just six chemicals according to Argonne: chlorine, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, fuming sulfuric acid and fuming nitric acid. Argonne also estimated that chlorine accounts for 58.5 percent of TIH risk of fatality. Once again, the prioritization of the most shipped hazardous substances will facilitate a rapid implementation of the most immediate and least costly policy option: re-routing dangerous cargoes around sensitive areas.
The widespread presence of graffiti on freight trains, including markings on 90-ton railroad tank cars is proof of the ease with which they can be accessed. Securing thousands of miles of U.S. rail lines is a virtual impossibility. The Madrid attacks in 2004 and the London attacks in July were a horrific wake up call to this vulnerability. The deadly rail car accident in South Carolina in January that killed ten people was further evidence of how lethal even a partial release from a chlorine tank car can be.
In June Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) introduced “The Hazardous Materials Vulnerability Reduction Act of 2005” (S. 1256) which would require the Secretary of DHS to regulate the shipment by rail of extremely hazardous materials (EHMs) and re-route EHMs around designated “high-threat corridors” with common sense exceptions. This approach is the most effective at risk reduction and also the least costly to taxpayers. DHS proposal to install cameras along tracks is expensive (more than $9 million in Washington, D.C. alone) and more importantly ineffective in stopping attacks as we saw in the London bombings.
Re-routing around densely populated areas as was enacted by the District of Columbia earlier this year is an immediate and effective step that can be taken to eliminate these terrorist targets and should be implemented nationally as soon as possible. Re-routing should be done in tandem with a comprehensive chemical security program which phases out unnecessary risks such as chlorine by converting to safer available alternatives. Where alternatives are not currently available, smaller storage quantities and shipments can be utilized while new technologies are developed.
The time for legislation that will only satisfy the oil and chemical industry is over. Congress must enact legislation that will eliminate hazards not simply continue to gamble on more guards and higher fences. That means enacting a law that protects communities from more tragedies by requiring the use of solutions already in use.
Sincerely,
Rick Hind
Legislative Director,
Greenpeace Toxics Campaign
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