The community meeting comes on the heels of Tuesday’s congressional hearing that revealed the explosion could have been a repeat of the disaster in Bhopal, India, which killed thousands.
Tuesday’s hearing revealed some disturbing news for the Kanawha Valley: the explosion last August that killed two plant workers came unsettlingly close to causing widespread death and destruction. The subcommittee also determined that Bayer engaged in a “campaign of secrecy” to cloak the events of August 28, 2008 from the government and the community.
“The investigation report from the Chemical Safety Board indicated that the fence line monitors around the plant were not working the night of the explosion, yet Bayer chooses to continue to use the argument that the public was not in danger because they had no indication from their monitoring system that anything was leaving the vent of the plant,” said Maya Nye, spokeswoman for the community group People Concerned About MIC—the chemical behind the Bhopal disaster that’s also stored at the Institute plant.
Nye’s group was started after the Bhopal disaster and has dedicated itself to raising concerns about the storage of methyl isocyanate, or MIC, at the Institute site.
The Institute plant is the only place in the United States that stockpiles MIC, which Bayer uses to manufacture an insecticide.
The congressional report released at the hearing called the explosion “particularly ominous and unnerving.” That’s because the explosion took place only 80 feet from the MIC tanks. They said that mere chance prevented a projectile from hitting the tank and if it had, “the consequences could have eclipsed the 1984 disaster in India.”
The report also outlines a public relations strategy by Bayer and Ann Green Communications to marginalize Nye and her group, as well as the Charleston Gazette.
Nye says the hearing was cathartic, because hidden truths were finally coming to light.
“I felt vindicated in a lot of ways because things were said under oath, things were said that have been denied for a very long time,” she said. “Practices they have such as discrediting local activists on top of all of the safety procedures that were not taken to protect the community, I felt very vindicated to finally hear someone in power acknowledge that.”
Nye added that in the past 25 years, all other U.S. plants have altered their production to eliminate the stockpiling of MIC. It can be made on-demand, which she says would create more jobs in Institute.
In a statement, Bill Buckner, President and CEO of Bayer CropScience said: "The safety of our employees, neighbors and community remains our highest priority. At Bayer CropScience, we are committed to operating facilities that meet or exceed stringent safety standards. Since the tragic accident of August 28, we have made several improvements to ensure our plant is safe to operate. We are determined to be great neighbors in our community. We take our responsibilities seriously and will continue to meet them. We will continue to cooperate with our public emergency response officials and remain in active dialogue with our neighbors. At Bayer CropScience, we are proud of what we do. We produce chemicals essential to sustainable agriculture."
A community meeting about the incident will be held Thursday evening at 6:30 in the Wilson Building at West Virginia State University.