News of the Week
Emergency plans urged for rallyard chemicals The probability of major accidents involving hazardous materials occurring in railroad yards is low, according to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board. But it warns that if such an accident does occur, particularly in an urban area where many yards are located, the risk to public health and safety is quite high. Railroad yards are fixed-site facilities not unlike chemical plants, the report points out. They receive bulk chemical containers, "process" them by rearranging their order according to destination (involving stress on the containers), and dispatch the containers in changed order. Yet no federal or state requirements currently exist for railroad yards to develop, adopt, test, or maintain emergency preparedness plans. NTSB would like to see that situation changed. It feels that federal
regulations or guidelines are needed because only three major railroads have policies that require emergency preparedness plans. Two of the policies were put in place only recently, after the board began its investigation of railroad yard safety. As evidence of the need for federal action, NTSB points out that over the past decade it has investigated just eight railroad yard accidents involving hazardous materials. But these resulted in 10 deaths, 1379 injuries, and $48 million in property damages. And the accident potential is real. An NTSB survey of eight railroad yards showed the number of cars carrying hazardous materials and switched daily in the yards ranged from four, or 1% of the total, to 525, or 15%. Copies of "Special Investigation Report: Railroad Yard Safety—Hazardous Materials and Emergency Preparedness," No. PB85-917005, are available from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, Va. 22161. D
Way apparently cleared for chemical weapons House and Senate conferees on the 1986 defense authorization bill appeared, at press time, poised to delete the key provision of the bill that could prevent the Administration from producing binary nerve gas weapons. Such a move would anger the House. The provision in question is a House-passed amendment to the authorization bill that requires the Administration to obtain agreement from European allies on deployment of the new chemical weapons before production begins. Despite public statements hinting to the contrary, such agreement would be difficult for NATO allies. British Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine recently told Parliament that there is "logic" to Britain's restocking chemical weapons. According to University of Sussex senior fellow Julian P. Robinson, a noted chemical warfare expert, there is "a lot of pressure from the military" to stock or produce chemical arms. But Heseltine and other European politicians, although "conceding that the military has a case β
July 29, 1985 C&EN
also are saying that the issue is much wider than the military consideration," Robinson says. The breadth of the issue includes re-election. Chemical warfare is not something that is popular among the public, and an agreement just to store U.S. binaries could hamper the re-election prospects for Heseltine's Tory party. Still, "the pressure to confront the issue is growing rapidly," Robinson says. He expects the Defense Committee to hold hearings on chemical weapons in the next session of Parliament. Word circulating in Washington, D.C., is that France is the leading contender for stockpiling U.S. chemical weapons. However, Guy de la Chevalerie, press attaché at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., says, "There is no willingness to accept U.S. chemical weapons— not at this stage. France is determined not to accept chemical weapons." Part of this unwillingness may stem from France's continued program to develop its own binary weapons, a program that Chevalerie acknowledges. •
Indian group in U.S. sets up Bhopal aid A coalition of Indian professionals in the U.S. is mounting an ambitious private effort to aid victims of last December's methyl isocyanate gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The organization, called the National Bhopal Disaster Relief Organization, is hoping to raise $3 million from a variety of sources. The major goal is to establish a clinic and research center to treat patients and to study the long-term effects on persons exposed to the gas. They are hoping the sum can be raised by Dec. 3, when a "World Bhopal Day" will be staged in commemoration of the first anniversary of the disaster. The relief organization was established in April when a meeting was called in Miami among groups that already existed there, as well as in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The head of the organization is Dinish Chandra, a project director at Coulter Electronics, a medical instrumentation firm in Miami. The organization's membership is currently about 450, and it already has raised $1.2 million mainly from Indian-Americans. Money has been spent on visits by U.S. physicians to Bhopal, a mobile clinic, incubators for the newborn, bronchodilator drugs for those whose lungs were affected, pulmonary function testers, and dispensaries in Bhopal. Chandra says the group hopes to collect $500,000 from U.S. chemical companies and adds that the organization plans to approach several Fortune 500 corporations for help. Another scheme is to collect proceeds from a record album that would be made by top Indian singers and musicians. He says his organization is devoted solely to the relief of the victims and will remain free of the legal and political infighting surrounding compensation issues. He reports that Union Carbide officials have expressed willingness to cooperate but says attitudes toward the company are so adverse in Bhopal that any Carbide assistance has to be indirect. G
