Why didn't 2,400 tons of ammonium nitrate at West plant raise concerns?

[white cloud]

Texas’ environmental agency knew in 2006 that West Fertilizer Co. was handling 2,400 tons a year of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate in a warehouse near schools, houses and a nursing home, documents show.

The notation in a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality permit form apparently raised no concerns, either internally or with other agencies, about explosion risks or the proper management of a chemical already notorious in Texas history for its deadly qualities when heated to extreme temperatures or exposed to shock.

Other agencies that knew about the dangerous stockpile also failed to pose such questions to their peers, records and interviews indicate. The explosion April 17 in the Central Texas town of West killed 14 people, including 10 volunteer firefighters, burned a school and destroyed or damaged buildings over a 35-block area.

How a fire caused the ammonium nitrate to detonate is the focus of federal and state investigations into the explosion.

For the TCEQ, which has by far the longest reach of any Texas regulatory agency and issues permits for many agricultural companies, ammonium nitrate safety is the job of a much smaller agency that specializes in testing farm products for quality and purity, the Office of the Texas State Chemist
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/west-explosion/headlines/20130423-why-didn-t-2400-tons-of-ammonium-nitrate-at-west-plant-raise-concerns.ece?ssimg=983837#ssStory983838

[Warpy]

1. Probably because they never made a phone call

to the DHS to tell them about it. That will likely cost them a fine. It might even be over a thousand bucks this time.

I don't think we can look to the DOJ for any satisfaction on this, they protect white capitalist criminals while looking for any and all excuses to jail labor.

We'll have to wait for them to be buried under civil lawsuits. They are likely to lose them since they were storing so much ammonium nitrate illegally.

Had they made that phone call, they'd have been covered and lawsuits would be less likely to succeed.

[Downwinder]

2. Ammonium nitrate is fertilizer and Texas has lots of that.

[Ilsa]

3. TCEQ = Perry and business cronies.

They are paid to look the other way.

[Blue Owl]

4. Welcome to the GOP utopia of self-regulation

n/t