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Facilitator: Pat Regan
June 19, 2001
Recorder: Teresa Turner
Sulphur Regional Library
MEMBERS PRESENT:
FACILITY REPRESENTATIVES:
Dick Rogers
Art Royals – Westlake Ethylene
Marilyn Rogers
Greg Godfrey – Louisiana Pigment
Carl LeBrun
Dennis Calhoun – Citgo
Harold Stevenson
Martyn Tickner - BASELL
Annette Habetz
Mike Cain – Equistar
Mel Mott
Patty Palmer – Equistar
Derrill Heurtin
Marvin Paggen – Grace Davison
John Hardy, Jr.
Carl Carlsson – Chemical Waste Management
Carolyn Cockrill
Mike Shell – Westlake Polymers
Ernest Pact – Firestone Polymers
MEMBERS ABSENT:
GUESTS:
Mel Estess
Kevin Baer – Speaker
Bill Terry
Nancy Baer
Rocky Keeley
Patsy LeBrun
Maurice Mueschke – dropped from CAP
Steve Turner
AGENDA TOPICS (Review Agenda, Meeting Objectives, & Minutes; Introductions):
The meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. The facilitator, Pat Regan, asked for introductions and welcomed our guests and a new CAP member, Carolyn Cockrill. The May meeting was cancelled, so there were no minutes for approval.
FACILITY UPDATES:
Grace Davison: The plant is running well and there have been no environmental incidents to report. There was an accident involving a secretary who mis-stepped and tripped on concrete. Also a maintenance worker pinched and cut his finger. He was
wearing gloves at the time. Stitches were required making this a recordable injury. Representatives from the Louisiana Chemical Association had an opportunity to tour Greenpeace’s boat. They offered a sample of products manufactured from their
chemicals which Greenpeace accepted when assured that they were recyclable. Each CAP member present was given a house-shaped brochure which lists common products found in practically every home and are made from vinyl and chlorine manufactured
in Louisiana. Westlake Polymers: Their prime maintenance contractor had a recordable injury. A millwright working on an extruder, hit his hand and suffered a fracture. There have been no environmental incidents to report. Business has been down and 2 of
their 7 polyethylene lines are down for inventory control and routine maintenance and by month’s end they expect to have 5 of these lines down. By July these five lines should be back on-line. Equistar: A new contract employee cut his hand and required 5 stitches. The plant has been down since February 17 and a news release was published and probably seen in today’s newspaper. The olefin and ethylene market is down. The company has
decided to reduce the state of readiness at the Lake Charles plant. All contractor’s jobs have been eliminated and process units at the plant will be maintained by a core team of employees numbering approximately 15. The remaining Equistar
employees will be offered re-location to other positions at other company locations. Possible explanations for this downturn in the marketplace are the cost of natural gas and loss of export demand. The question remains as to whether this is
part of a cycle or a change in business. Q: Do any other businesses in this area use your products?
A: Yes, but the demand just isn’t there. Q: Is your business down because you’ve lost exports or because the U.S. demand is down?
A: Both. Also foreign competitors and imports are having an impact. There are more new facilities producing cheaper product, more efficiently. Louisiana Pigment: Production has been up but sales are down and inventory is up fairly high. They think the rest of this year will be mediocre. There have been no recordables to report since the April meeting. There have been two offsite
releases of titanium tetrachloride. These were both caused by a pump failure. Because of the quantity released and wind direction, their neighbors were not affected. A recent news story concerning a fatality at Louisiana Pigment did not
actually occur at their site but at the Kronos slurry facility. This is confusing because only half of the plant was sold to Tioxide while the other half was retained by Kronos. Louisiana Pigment makes dry pigment while Kronos makes it in a
slurry form. Kronos built, owns, and operates this facility on Louisiana Pigment property. OSHA has been investigating this death, but no findings have been released. Westlake Ethylene: There have been no recordable injuries or environmental releases to report. The styrene plant has been down for inventory control for a couple of months. It is expected to be back up and running by tomorrow. The two ethylene
plants have been operating at close to minimum rates. One is being brought down for maintenance for approximately two weeks before resuming operations. Both plants are expected to run for the rest of the year but at less than maximum rates. Chemical Waste Management: There has been one recordable injury when a facility maintenance employee experienced an electrical shock because of a short. Investigation into procedures used for this type of operation indicated more training
requirements be enforced. The employee suffered some second degree burns to his forearm making this a lost time recordable. They have noticed an increase in third-party drivers on site having incidents. An enhanced driver orientation program
will be produced and implemented to reduce these events. There were a couple of environmental issues reported on. One incident involved an exceedence on the holding time of a sample of surface water due to an internal error. This has since been
corrected, but the sample was invalidated. A container caught fire but was put out quickly. A courtesy notification was sent out to local authorities. Investigation into this incident seems to point to computer monitors which were being managed
as hazardous waste due to lead content. It is theorized that a capacitor, which can hold a charge even when unplugged, caused a spark and ignited some cardboard in the same container. DEQ found this incident had been handled properly. This type
of waste will be managed differently from now on. BASEL: They had no environmental incidents to report. There was a highly unusual safety incident reported on. A truck emptying its’ contents caught an overhead phone cable which was then pulled across Hwy 108 resulting in a power outage.
Investigation revealed that the guy wire holding this line in place had corroded and not much force was required to pull it loose. Business has not been good and no change is expected within the next 18 months. Citgo: There have been no injuries to report since our last meeting. A required worst case spill drill will be conducted on July 11 and 12. DEQ, EPA and the Coast Guard will be involved in this event. They have been reviewing their hurricane
plans and procedures due to the storm, Allison, which developed rather early in the season. They recently graduated an operator class and are expecting a new class to start next week. More hiring is expected to occur later this year. The
petroleum industry is in an up cycle and seems to run counter to the polymers industry cycles. There was a flare incident when a compressor was lost. They smoked for more than 5 minutes. The compressor was repaired and is back on line. The EPA
was in for a routine air inspection. They found one plug out of about 1200 which was not tightened completely. Everything else was OK. Firestone Polymers: One of the units has been shut down due to low demand in plastics across the nation. 16 workers were laid off with hopes that they can be brought back later this summer. They are currently down for two weeks for mechanical
integrity purposes. Safety incidents include an employee who received second degree steam burns and an injury sustained due to a bicycle accident. Environmentally there was an on-site incident to report due to heavy rains associated with
tropical storm Allison.
TOXICOLOGY PRESENTATION:
Dr. Kevin Baer is a professor of toxicology with the University of Louisiana at Monroe; College of Pharmacy; Department of Toxicology. ULM was formerly known as Northeast Louisiana University. He graduated from Northeast with a degree in
biology. The Toxicology Department at ULM is regarded as one of the top schools in the country. They are one of six universities in the nation offering a B.S. degree in toxicology. Also housed within the College of Pharmacy is the Louisiana
Institute of Toxicology. They have the first $1 million dollar endowed chair in toxicology. They also house the Louisiana Poison Control Center. The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson along with some environmental disasters in Japan involving mercury brought forth to the public the problem of environmental pollution. Although well written, it is, in Dr. Baer’s opinion, scientifically
flawed. The controversy over substances like DDT (which has saved millions of lives by wiping out the sector that causes malaria) reinforces the need to evaluate toxicants by more than one study. A weight of evidence approach is needed to have
a balanced perspective. An introduction to toxicology reveals that this is the science of poisons. Toxicology is the study of harmful interactions between chemicals or the physical agents with biological systems. A toxicologist is a scientist who defines conditions
under which toxicity will occur. The word toxicology comes from toxicon (a poisonous substance into which arrowheads were dipped); toxikos (a bow); and logos (study). The first known law against poisoning was introduced in
82 BC. The document Materia Medica which classified poisons into animal, vegetable, or mineral was written in AD 50. Paracelsus is considered the Father of Toxicology and is credited with the landmark statement, "All substances are poisons;
there is none that is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy.” Shakespeare wrote about poisons; arsenic was known to the ancient Hindus, Egyptians, and Chinese. A toxicant or poison is a relative term since not all doses of a toxic material may cause noticeable harmful effects. Sometimes the harmful effects are cumulative and may not appear for a long time. Toxicants may be selective in that they cause
injury to one species or individual, but not another. Many medicinal drugs are toxic, but are approved for use since some diseases are more serious than the side effects associated with the medicine. This is known as “risk benefit”. Harmful
effects are classified as acute or chronic. Acute toxicity is noted by a very sudden, rapid onset whether causing an irritation or in terms of lethality. Chronic toxicity is due to long-term exposure and can manifest problems in such areas as
reproduction and the development of cancers. Toxicity is demonstrated when a toxicologist chooses an endpoint (lethality, symptom or disease), a route of exposure (oral, dermal, inhalation), duration, frequency, and then decides how to measure
the defined endpoint. One tool of measurement is the LD50 which defines the dose of chemical expected to cause lethality in 50% of the test population under defined conditions. Lab animals are used and human concentrations are estimated from
the data gathered. Tolerance ranges are set from the highest dose which causes no toxicity (no observable effects) to the lowest dose which does cause toxicity. Occupational exposure guidelines are set by agencies such as OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). These agencies give us Threshold Limit Values (TLVs). These limits are generally concerned with airborne
concentrations of substances in conditions under which nearly all workers may be exposed, on a daily basis, without adverse effects. Some of these thresholds are based on a time-weighted average (i.e. an 8 hour day, or a 40 hour work week).
Another classification is Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health. These exposure guidelines are based on data from industrial exposures, animal tests, and studies in human volunteers They are also based on a variety of endpoints such as
respiratory sensitization, sensory irritation, narcoses (falling asleep or passing out), or asphyxia (suffocation). TLVs are not fine lines separating safe from dangerous levels of exposure. They are guidelines only. This is because the degree
of health hazard is based on a continuous function of exposure. Chemical hazards need to be placed into perspective. The desire to minimize health hazards must be balanced by the use of chemicals which benefit the way we live. The popular view is that even at low levels, chemicals pose significant health
hazards. This is based on misunderstandings of toxicology. The principles of toxicology help us understand how chemicals may affect our health and make good judgments about chemical exposures. A common question is whether naturally occurring
chemicals are safer than man-made chemicals. It is important to remember that some of the most toxic substances known are “natural” and our bodies cannot differentiate between the two. Substances like sugar, aspirin or peanut butter can be
found on the LD50 list. Dose response is a basic concept of toxicology. As you increase the dose, you increase the response. For the majority of chemicals there is a dose below which no harmful effects occur. The presence of a chemical in the
body does not necessarily mean that harmful effects will occur. Because a chemical is toxic does not mean that it is hazardous – the two words are not synonymous. Toxicity is the capacity for a chemical to cause harmful effects. The hazard of a
chemical is based on both its toxicity and the likelihood that exposure to it will occur. Risk is defined as a numerical estimate describing the probability that harmful effects may occur from a certain exposure level. To place chemical hazards
in perspective, and to reduce fears of chemicals in the environment, the following questions should be answered: Is the chemical toxic?
- What are the specific harmful effects associated with the chemical?
- Is the exposure hazardous?
- What exposure levels are necessary to cause harmful effects?
- Is the health risk (if any) from the exposure acceptable in comparison to acceptable risks from other activities?
A pie chart used as an example of risk showed that one in four people will die from cancer. A breakdown of the risk factors for developing this disease show that diet (what we eat and how we cook it) accounts for a risk factor of 30%; tobacco
use – 30%; unknown factors - 20%; occupational and environmental factors - 10%; viruses – 5%; and heredity - 5%. Preliminary studies show that the removal of all chemicals from the environment would only reduce a person’s lifetime risk of
developing cancer from 25% to 23.7%. The occurrence of cancer clusters (or any clusters) was illustrated to be a naturally occurring mathematical phenomenon. A chart created by a random number generator showed several areas of clustered dots.
It is extremely rare (atypical) to have a homogenous placement of points on such a chart. Your environment is your health, and your environment, according to the World Health Organization, is everything you come into contact with. NEXT MEETING DATE & AGENDA:
There is no meeting scheduled for July! The Calcasieu CAP will next meet on Tuesday, August 21, 2001 at 6:00 P.M. at the Sulphur Library. The proposed topic is a Calcasieu Estuary Update. Mark McMurry from the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury will
be asked to speak. The meeting was adjourned at 7:30 P.M.
Respectfully submitted,
Teresa Turner
Recording Secretary
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