NEWS OF TH E WEEK
PROSECUTION: Case involved felony charges against University of California, professor
T
HE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA paid
$4.5 million to outside law firms to defend itself and UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran from felony charges of labor code violations relating to the death of a staff researcher. The numbers were released by the UC Office of the President in response to a public records request filed by C&EN. Researcher Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji was using a syringe to transfer tert-butyllithium, which ignites spontaneously in air, when the plunger came out of the syringe barrel. Sangji was not wearing a flame-resistant lab coat, and her clothes caught fire. She died from her injuries on Jan. 16, 2009. She was 23 years old and had received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Pomona College in May 2008. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against UC and Harran on Dec. 27, 2011. The charges cited failure to correct unsafe workplace conditions and procedures in a timely manner, failure to require work-appropriate clothing and personal protective equipment, and failure to provide chemical safety training to employees. UC settled its case with the district attorney on July 27, 2012. UC agreed to accept responsibility for the laboratory conditions that led to Sangji’s death, establish a law scholarship in her name, and follow a specified lab safety program for four years. In exchange, the district attorney will drop the charges.
Harran went through a preliminary hearing before finally reaching an agreement with the district attorney on June 25 this year. Harran agreed to accept responsibility for lab conditions, pay $10,000 to the burn center Harran (right) sat that treated Sangji, and complete multiple forms of with his attorney, community service. The district attorney will drop the Thomas O’Brien, in court on June 20. charges once the five-year agreement is fulfilled. UC paid law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, which represented the UC governing body in the case, a total of $1.3 million from Dec. 29, 2008, through Aug. 31, 2014. UC paid the firm Paul Hastings, which represented Harran, $3.1 million. UC paid a third firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson, $85,000. “We defended ourselves and our faculty member as was our right and obligation, using funds in the University of California’s systemwide self-insurance program,” says UCLA spokesman Sangji Case Bills Steve Ritea. At A Glance “Had UCLA spent even a tiny fraction of this money and efUC defense costs: $1.3 million fort on laboratory and chemical Harran defense costs: $3.1 million safety training and fire-resistant gear when the two graduate stuUC’s 2013–14 operating budget: dents got burned in their labs, $6.6 billion before Sheri’s injuries, Sheri Estimated cost to outfit all UC lab might still be with us today,” says workers with personal protective Naveen Sangji, Sheri’s sister. equipment: $4 million On the prosecution side, the SOURCE: UC Office of the President District Attorney’s Office “never calculates the amount of each prosecution,” says spokeswoman Jane Robison. “Our attorneys, unlike private attorneys, are not paid by the hour.”—JYLLIAN KEMSLEY AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES
LAB DEATH DEFENSE COST $4.5 MILLION
PETROCHEMICALS Sasol green-lights big Louisiana chemicals project Encouraged by low-cost feedstocks from shale gas, Sasol, the South African fuels and chemicals giant, has given the final go-ahead for an ethylene cracker and derivatives complex in Lake Charles, La., that will cost $8.1 billion. The ethylene plant will have 1.5 million metric tons of annual capacity when it opens in 2018. Sasol is also building 900,000 metric tons of polyethylene capacity, as well as plants to make ethylene oxide, ethylene glycol, Ziegler and Guerbet alcohols, and ethoxylates. An octene plant is no longer part of its plans. Stephen Cornell, Sasol’s head of
international operations, says the high price tag relative to other Gulf Coast chemical projects is primarily due to the downstream products, such as specialty alcohols, that the company will make. Some other companies are planning only ethylene and polyethylene facilities. When the project was originally unveiled in 2011, Sasol estimated that it would cost no more than $4.5 billion. In a December 2012 update, the company raised its estimate to between $5 billion and $7 billion. Cornell fingers the “heated labor market” for the project’s escalating cost.
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Russell Heinen, senior director of technology and analytics for the consulting firm IHS Chemical, says rising wages for skilled laborers, such as welders, often comes up when he talks to clients building plants. “Next year should be really interesting as we start seeing these projects reach peak staffing levels,” Heinen says. He doesn’t expect companies to cancel plans because of the higher costs, but he says he already knows of delays. Sasol says it will make a final decision regarding a separate $14 billion gasto-liquids plant, also planned for Lake Charles, in two years.—ALEX TULLO
