Thursday, April 16, 1998 | 11:27 a.m.
RENO, Nev. - Infrequent inspections and inadequate training probably contributed to a blast that flattened a chemical explosives plant near here and killed four workers, federal safety investigators said Thursday.
On-the-job training deficiencies and lack of independent oversight at the Sierra Chemical Co.'s plant raises broader questions about whether the explosives industry needs to be more tightly regulated, the chairman of a new federal chemical safety board said.
The most probable cause of the Jan. 7 explosion felt 20 miles away was a worker who turned on a motor for a mixing blade unaware that an explosive mix had been left in a melting pot from the night before, investigators told the panel.
They cited limited technical knowledge on the part of the workers regarding explosive safety. All of the workers at the plant were Hispanic and few spoke English, yet the plant's safety and operations manuals were available only in English.
"The knowledge base of the workers is a serious concern," said Paul Hill, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
"Workers can only react to information they have," he said in an interview after the six-hour hearing, the new board's first formal inquiry.
"If basic information is not available or not readily available such as in their native language so it can be absorbed, there is a serious misunderstanding of the risks posed," Hill said.
The explosion 12 miles east of Reno killed four and injured six. It left a crater 40 feet wide and 6 feet deep, broke windows a mile away and shook seismic needles at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Sierra Chemical Co. based in Sparks was invited to make a presentation to the panel Thursday, but declined, Hill said.
The company referred calls to lawyer Bruce Laxalt, who said they appreciated the "sincere effort of the chemical safety board in their first investigation.
"Regarding their criticism of Sierra Chemical's operations, I think the history of the plant - 25 years without an incident at Mustang - that speaks for itself," Laxalt said.
The investigators said they found there is no uniform system of industry oversight and no required design standards for explosives manufacturing facilities.
The last local fire marshal's inspection of the plant was in 1992. The Washoe County Building Department and Sierra Chemical Co. had scheduled a joint inspection of the plant for Jan. 9 - two days after the blast.
At least one worker who survived the blast has said he was not properly trained to handle chemicals he mixed at the explosives plant.
Dennis Walters, an investigator for the chemical safety board, said workers were paid based on the amount of soda-can-sized explosive booster canisters they filled each shift. He said they were encouraged to adjust procedures as they saw fit to maximize production.
In some cases, one worker might not notify a co-worker of procedural changes, which could potentially cause irregularities when mixing the liquid dynamite and other chemicals, he said.
"Well-meaning operators would make changes in the process, perhaps for safety or improved efficiency, but they would be doing so with a lack of information to do it effectively," Walters said.
"The on-the-job training did not really provide the technical background needed to evaluate the impact on safety."
A preliminary investigation by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms concluded that an initial explosion occurred in a room where workers were mixing a volatile brew of chemicals used in the mining industry. Seconds later, the blast from that explosion hit a storage building containing 10,000 pounds of a highly explosive material called PETN.
Hill said he wants to examine whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made a mistake earlier this year by removing high explosives from its list of regulated substances.
The EPA made the change just one day before the explosion, citing improvements in industry practices promoting safety and accident prevention.
That despite the fact the ATF reports there were 46 explosive-related accidents in the United States from 1994-96, which killed 46 people and injured 119, Hill said.
"It is my intent to have the board continue to monitor events similar to the one we are examining today with the purpose of determining why deadly accidents occur and whether to make recommendations to EPA to correct what may be a potential threat to public health and safety," he said.
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