Bayer CropScience will pay $5.6 million as a part of a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency for an explosion in 2008 that killed two people at a West Virginia facility.
In August 2008, an explosion from a thermal reaction during the production of insecticides at the plant in Institute, W. Va. killed two and sent two others to the hospital. Bayer CropScience is a division of pharmaceutical company Bayer AG.
According to a statement from the EPA, Bayer CropScience didn’t comply with its risk management plan and didn’t train employees to operate a control system that could have contained the factors that led to the explosion.
The company will now be forced to pay $4.23 million for environmental projects in the Institute community, including improving communications for first responders, providing emergency response equipment to police and firefighters, and hazardous waste collection at local schools, according to a statement released Monday.
The company must also pay a $975,000 penalty and $452,000 to improve safety at chemical storage facilities in West Virginia, Texas, Michigan and Missouri, according to the EPA.
“The multiple safety failures that existed at this facility that led to a loss of life demonstrate why safeguards are necessary to protect people’s health and the environment,” said EPA mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin. “This settlement will incorporate worker safety training, as well as emergency preparedness and response capabilities at this plant and a number of other Bayer facilities, ensuring the protection of workers, the public and the environment from accidental chemical releases that are preventable.”
Bayer is required to complete the majority of the improvements to the various chemical storage facilities within the next three years.
The complaint filed by the EPA notes numerous problems with how Bayer CropScience ran the chemical storage facility. The EPA’s investigation found the company delayed first responders from getting into the plant after the explosion and didn’t provide enough information to 911 operators.
In addition, employees at the chemical storage facility didn’t know how to operate a digital control system and didn’t follow sampling, temperature control and flow safeguard procedures. That resulted in a buildup in a treatment unit that caused the chemical reaction leading to the explosion.
John Cruden, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said the explosion is an example of what can happen when companies don’t comply with safety requirements.
“The Department of Justice is committed to worker safety,” he said. “Under this judicially enforceable settlement, Bayer CropScience will not only pay a penalty but commits to significant improvements in preparedness and response capabilities at its facilities across the country.”
