Case study and lessons learned from the ammonium nitrate explosion at the West Fertilizer facility

•In-depth technical analysis of the West, Texas ammonium nitrate incident.•Regulatory analysis for compliance with federal, state and local regulations.•Facility siting and land use planning implications.•Need for local coordination of risk information and emergency planning. In West, Texas on April...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of hazardous materials 2016-05, Vol.308, p.164-172
Main Authors: Laboureur, Delphine M., Han, Zhe, Harding, Brian Z., Pineda, Alba, Pittman, William C., Rosas, Camilo, Jiang, Jiaojun, Mannan, M. Sam
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accident and emergency units
Ammonium nitrate
Ammonium nitrates
Case study
Communities
Consequence analysis
Explosions
Fires
Regulations
Safety management
Small business
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Summary:•In-depth technical analysis of the West, Texas ammonium nitrate incident.•Regulatory analysis for compliance with federal, state and local regulations.•Facility siting and land use planning implications.•Need for local coordination of risk information and emergency planning. In West, Texas on April 17, 2013, a chemical storage and distribution facility caught fire followed by the explosion of around 30 tons of ammonium nitrate while the emergency responders were trying to extinguish the fire, leading to 15 fatalities and numerous buildings, businesses and homes destroyed or damaged. This incident resulted in devastating consequences for the community around the facility, and shed light on a need to improve the safety management of local small businesses similar to the West facility. As no official report on the findings of the incident has been released yet, this article first investigates the root causes of the incident, and presents a simplified consequence analysis. The article reviews the regulations applicable to this type of facility and recommended emergency response procedures to identify gaps between what happened in West and the current regulations, and discusses how the current regulations could be modified to prevent or minimize future losses. Finally, the federal response that followed the incident until the publication of this paper is summarized.
ISSN:0304-3894
1873-3336
DOI:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2016.01.039