WTF Just Happened in Parkersburg, West Virginia? & West Virginia warehouse fire almost extinguished 29&27OKT17

No, it's not a volcano. This is a fire at an old factory being used for chemical storage. Hope you didn't live downwind.
WEST VIRGINIA, rampant opioid crisis, environmental devastation from mountain top removal coal mining, under educated, under employed, underfunded social safety net. Look at West Virginia if you want a preview of what NOT MY pres drumpf/trump, NOT MY vp pence and the republican majority in congress want to do to the rest of America. Here is just another  example of what lack of regulation and lack of regulation enforcement ( due to policies as well as budget cuts for responsible agencies by republican politicians) we can expect to see more of. From DailyKos and the Washington Post.....
WTF Just Happened in Parkersburg, West Virginia?

My Facebook news feed popped up a story about a fire at an old factory that was being used to store chemicals. (Yes, I know Facebook and Fake News, but….) The pictures and the allegations were enough to get me to check out other sources. From the 10/22/17 Parkersburg News & Sentinel:

PARKERSBURG — Smoke is expected to continue to billow for several days from the former shovel plant in south Parkersburg that caught fire early Saturday morning.

Twenty departments from six counties — including the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Environmental Protection — responded to the Ames Plant on Camden Avenue where all that remains of the more-than-400,000 square foot facility is charred rubble...

...No injuries were reported, Stewart said. Plastic material was stored in the facility, owned by IEI Plastics, he said.

A followup story reports on WV Governor Jim Justice visiting the site of the fire 10/25/17, which was still smoldering at the time.

...There are not a lot of things known at this point about what was at the site and what the contaminants might be. There was a possibility the Wood County government would go bankrupt fighting this fire, which could have burned for 35-40 days if nothing was done, officials said.

”Someone had to stand up and make a decision,” Justice said of approving the financial support so the contractor who specializes in fighting industrial fires could remain on the scene and bring in additional resources….

According to the report (with lots of photos) that got me looking at this initially,

...The warehouse used to be the Ames Factory (I think they made shovels there), but for years has been a dump for things that Dupont can't legally get rid of. The state doesn't know what was in there, but there is possibilities of any number of these products being stored there - PVC, Nylon, Carbon black, Titanium dioxide, Fiberglass, Maleic Anhydride TLV 0.1 ppm, Formaldehyde, PTFE (Teflon), Styrene, Acrylonitrile, Polybutylene Terephthalate, and/or Acrylic Sheet all of which are not good things when burned.

Edit: Update from Reddit "There is also an underground storage tank from when it was ames that is full of trichloroethyene, lead, ethylbenzene, and toluene that is leaking. The fire suppression system for the warehouse failed last winter because one of the pipes froze and busted. They never had it fixed."

If there’s an attribution as to who is putting this information together, I haven’t been able to uncover it, so take the story as unconfirmed. Additional allegations however would suggest the company operating the warehouse is a shell company owned by Dupont, that the chemicals stored include materials that would be difficult/expensive to dispose of safely, that there were numerous safety violations and a near total lack of anything approaching safe storage. And, there are more places like this out there.

The News & Sentinel does have more on this that would seem to make those charges worth following up. Officials: MSDS not accurate at IEI warehouse

PARKERSBURG — Officials say material safety data sheets for the Intercontinental Export-Import Plastics warehouse on Camden Avenue, the former Ames shovel plant, are likely out of date and do not give an accurate view of what was stored in the building at the time of the fire.

An MSDS is information that is specific to the chemical it describes. It tells how to store it safely, how to handle it, what particular hazards are associated with it, and often comes with a graphic symbol that provides a visual short-hand summary. The different colors identify specific hazards, the number indicates how great the hazard, plus one diamond for special notes for a compound. [UPDATE: Here’s what OSHA has to say.]

If you’ve seen this on the back of a truck, this is what it means.

For the Parkersburg plant, it’s not just that the MSDS sheets may have been out of date, it’s that there does not seem to be a full inventory of what was being stored — and it’s likely the local officials had no idea beforehand of what was going on inside the factory, else the situation would never have been allowed to develop in the first place. Which is kind of the point.

If this seems familiar, a similar scenario played out in Houston, Texas after Hurricane Harvey. 

The French company that says its Houston-area chemical plant is spewing "noxious" smoke—and may explode—successfully pressed federal regulators to delay new regulations designed to improve safety procedures at chemical plants, according to federal records reviewed by International Business Times.The rules, which were set to go into effect this year, were halted by the Trump administration after a furious lobbying campaign by plant owner Arkema and its affiliated trade association, the American Chemistry Council, which represents a chemical industry that has poured tens of millions of dollars into federal elections.

As is known, the plant did explode with consequences for first responders and the community. 

The chemical industry is not your friend, nor is the Federal Government these days. If anyone has more information about what just happened in Parkersburg, or if you’re aware of a similar situation where you live or work, feel free to comment (unless you’ve been made to sign an NDA — handy things, those.) With Industry friend Scott Pruitt at the helm of the Environmental Profitizing Agency, stay tuned for more of the same. (He’s going to need more bodyguards.)

West Virginia warehouse fire almost extinguished

By Associated Press October 27

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — West Virginia emergency officials say a warehouse fire that began last week is nearly out.

Lubeck Fire Chief Mark Stewart estimates that the fire in South Parkersburg is “90 percent” extinguished from ongoing efforts by firefighters.

The goal is to finish overnight Friday and Saturday, then monitor it for up to two days for possible flare-ups.

The 420,000-foot (130,000-meter) warehouse property where the fire broke out Saturday is owned by Columbia, Maryland-based Intercontinental Export Import Inc., which says on its website that it buys and sells an array of recycled plastics worldwide.

The Department of Environmental Protection has been measuring air quality around the site and was expected to post more results later.

The DEP ordered the company to provide a detailed inventory and properly dispose of debris.

Big Imgur post/collection of the Ames plant fire, with background and details.

(source) 4 days

Gif of it burning: https://imgur.com/ZQ0Cf56 I'll be collecting all the updates I've found on social media here. The warehouse used to be the Ames Factory (I think they made shovels there), but for years has been a dump for things that Dupont can't legally get rid of. The state doesn't know what was in there, but there is possibilities of any number of these products being stored there - PVC, Nylon, Carbon black, Titanium dioxide, Fiberglass, Maleic Anhydride TLV 0.1 ppm, Formaldehyde, PTFE (Teflon), Styrene, Acrylonitrile, Polybutylene Terephthalate, and/or Acrylic Sheet all of which are not good things when burned. Edit: Update from Reddit "There is also an underground storage tank from when it was ames that is full of trichloroethyene, lead, ethylbenzene, and toluene that is leaking. The fire suppression system for the warehouse failed last winter because one of the pipes froze and busted. They never had it fixed." Edit 2: Another update from an insider that used to work for Dupont. IEI, who owns the building is a shell company owned by Dupont. Also, from a different insider "Saurabh Naik (Ed Note: The official owner of IEI) has dozens of LLC Shell companies like IEI that he funnels stuff through. He makes everyone that works from him sign an NDA. You'd be Shocked at some of the stuff that gets stored in his warehouses. You get everything from polymers to toxic Dust to drums of acid all thrown into the same sections of buildings. I've personally seen warehouses wall-to-wall with this stuff with literally no room to walk around in. If a Fire breaks out in one of his buildings then there is no way to put it out short of letting the entire thing Burn to the ground. Apparently this old AMES building was one of his worst and he's already received many citations and Warnings about how things are stored and the general maintenance of the facility. Expect shutdowns of satellite warehouses soon and probably a couple bankruptcies declared as Well."

Fire crews have been on site since Saturday, costing the city of Parkersburg $60,000 a day, they've already spent more than $300,000 on fighting the fire. Some fire fighters on site have said that while the fire on the building is easy to put out, some of the materials inside it burn hotter when sprayed with water. They do not have enough foam to put out the fire, but they need it badly.

Why can't they just let it burn out? This is why. This ash cloud has been bellowing from the fire since the beginning and the ash has been found over 40 miles away. People who breathe in the ash and smoke for as little as half an hour have issues with breathing, burning skin, eyes, and throat. Residents are also reporting headaches and nausea. A lot of people have been hospitalized for acute chemical pneumonitis. Schools are closed, buses aren't running, businesses are closed, and government agencies are closed.

Most people do not have the money to evacuate, and they are not safe in their homes, let alone if they leave to get supplies. The smoke cloud is literally blacking out the sky in areas.

The weather in the last few days increased toxicity in the air and has caused toxic water run-off into the creeks and river. The fire department has nearly drained the city's water reservoir, and the reservoir has likely been compromised by the ash as they don't know if the filters can clear it.

Though a Dupont spokesperson said that the cloud was harmless, it reportedly smells like paint thinner and people are going to the hospital because of it.

Fire crews have been finding unlabeled containers inside and outside the building burning. For example, DEP inspectors found that “good housekeeping was not being maintained” at the warehouse. They also found that the company had not developed and implemented a groundwater protection plan that “included materials stored at the site.”

"Officials say a material safety data sheet for the Intercontinental Export-Import Plastics warehouse on Camden Avenue, the former Ames shovel plant, is likely out of date and does not give an accurate view of what was stored in the building at the time of the fire." http://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/community-news/2017/10/officials-msds-not-accurate-at-iei-warehouse/

Once again, West Virginia has gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to our water, air, and land. And because of this, our citizens are suffering and our fire fighters are risking their lives to help fight the fire.

Luckily no one has died yet, but the long term effects of the smoke have yet to be determined.