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In the article below, Barry Grey provides insight into the causes and government/media 'managing' of the two deadly blasts in Boston and the small Texas town named "West" destroyed last week. The media is profuse with mixed reports of damage control for the corporation, West Fertilizer Company and it's owners while firewalling suggestions of their culpability.
A "family business" built with taxpayer money
The Adair family have been "among the biggest recipients in the area of farm subsidy payments from the federal government." Donald Adair received $874,522 from 1995 to 2011 and his son, Gary Adair received $1.2 million from taxpayers during the same period while running a for-profit corporation worth millions. The president of West Fertilizer is Ted Uptmore, whose family is prominent in West and operates a livestock auction business near the plant called West Auctions. Forbes Magazine reports that West Fertilizer company had eight (8) employees from a town of 2800 residents - so much for big business providing jobs for people. Media applies its paint Reuters headlines: Texas town holds no grudge against exploded fertilizer plant owner, describing multi-millionaire, Donald Adair, as a "Texas farmer", saying he bought the "floundering" company in 2004 as though he saved it for the benefit of the people who, "were grateful he had saved them from driving extra miles to Waco or Hillsboro to buy fertilizer, feed and tools." However, some of the victims in West, not interviewed by the corporate media may not be so kind to Adair and the managers of West Fertilizer. Two civil lawsuits have already been filed against the company and more are sure to follow. It remains to be seen if criminal charges will be leveled on those involved but with Governor Rick Perry (see below) already defending the company's safety record, it's difficult to imagine. Fox News headlines, "Police Find No Evidence Of Crime In TX Fertilizer Plant Explosion," obviously referring to no sabotage or intentional blowing up of the plant. Fox ignores evidence of crimes committed by the owners of the company and government regulators leading to the explosion. But a Malaysian Answers website asks the question, Should the owners and officers of the Texas fertilizer plant be charged with 14 murders? One respondent answers:
Deregulation, lack of enforcement and flaunting of regulations by the Adair Family According to a database of U.S. government data, compiled by the Environmental Working Group, despite the company's numerous and deadly violiations of government regulations, "a Texas state environmental official described its safety record as 'average'," according to Reuters. But West Fertilizer Company's violations of safety regulations over the years are too many to recount. Randy Lee Loftis, environmental writer for Dallas Morning News, wrote an excellent analysis detailing many violations and an abysmal lack of oversight and regulation of the West Fertilizer stating, "West Fertilizer Co.’s problems complying with Texas environmental rules go back decades, state records show." But our report will limit the following three violations of West Fertilizer and failure of government regulators in 2012, 2006 and 1985. 2012 - According to Industry Week, the West Fertilizer Co, was fined over $5,000 in fines in all of 2012 (barely a tickle) when it was busted for "mislabeled cargo tanks and inadequate transport practices," Motive can almost never be proved. Was "mislabeling cargo tanks" a simple mistake - or an effort to deliberately and intentionally deceive? 2006 - After repeated complaints by townspeople in 2006 about the smell of ammonia coming from the plant, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigated. They cited the company for operating its two storage tanks containing dangerous liquid anhydrous ammonia without a permit. Reportedly, the commission then issued the permit "once the operators brought the facility into accord with the regulations and recommendations made by the agency." After being fined ty the EPA in 2006 for violating safety regulations, the company "told federal safety agencies that there was 'no' risk of a fire at the plant" and the government regulators were apparently satisfied to take their word for it. 1985 - The last time the plant was inspected by OSHA was in 1985. At that time, OSHA cited West Fertilizer Plant for "improper storage of anhydrous ammonia and fined it a whopping $30 dollars. OSHA also found the plant in violation of respiratory protection standards but fined them $zero dollars. Meanwhile Texas Governor Rick Perry, widely known for executing more prisoners than even George W. Bush, says there's no need to spend more money regulating this dangerous industry. On Monday Perry stated, that Texans “through their elected officials clearly send the message of their comfort with the amount of oversight.” President of West Fertilizer, Ted Uptmore (who appears to secretive and camera shy) defended West Fertilizer's safety record. Speaking briefly to the Tribune Herald he tried to subtly deflect responsibility for the destruction and damage to nearby homes and a nursing home: “The fertilizer plant was pretty much alone in that part of West for many years, and it generally has had an outstanding safety record." Uptmore added that homes, an apartment complex and a nursing home were built nearby “years later” as though it was the people's stupidity to blame for building so close to a time bomb. So why the weak regulations and lack of enforcement at West Fertilizer? Consider this, West Fertilizer Co is a retail facility that blends fertilizer and sells anhydrous ammonia and other chemical products to local farmers. Since 1998, The Agricultural Retailers Association has spent $2.9 million and the Fertilizer Institute has spent $14.4 million in lobbying to persuade legislators to enact laws favorable to cutting costs and increasing profits. Add to that institutional corruption, the backroom deals, backhanded payoffs and good ole' boy shuck 'n jive at the local level and you've got a government whose concern for public safety is at the bottom of the list. In the U.S. it's the 'oldest profession' it's as Amurkin' as West Texas cowshit. Anhydrous Ammonia At the time of the explosion, the corporation had a permit to store about 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia. In late 2012 they filed with the EPA stating they had double that amount, 110,000 pounds of the hazardous chemical stored. Dallas Morning News describes anhydrous ammonia as, "a liquid fertilizer kept under pressure and classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as an extremely hazardous chemical — meaning a leak of its gas could kill large numbers of people." West Fertilizer Company stored it's liquid anhydrous ammonia in two 12,000-gallon tanks adjacent to the fertilizer plant and had they blown up with the plant, the disaster would have been even greater. During the fire in the plant, firefighters and first responders were at enormous risk and some killed and injured, not to speak of the people in the area should these tanks have exploded from the heat or explosion of the main plant. Ammonium Nitrate According to a filing with the EPA in late 2012, the company stated that it stored 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate at the site. According to a Reuters report, this is,
Fertilizer plants are required to report to the Department of Homeland Security when they store 400 lbs or more of ammonium nitrate and failed to do this when they were storing 270 tons (540,000 lbs) of it in 2012. Moreover, The EPA's Risk Management Program requires companies to submit plans and describe their handling of hazardous chemicals but the EPA does not include ammonium nitrate among them. Moreover, Texas officials said the Office of the Texas State Chemist, which regulates fertilizer, visited the company 12 times in 2012 and found no problems with the management of its material. Texas A&M University: Interference and Obstruction of Justice. Yesterday, Texas A&M University which houses the Office of the Texas State Chemist filed an appeal to the Texas Attorney General to deny disclosure of documents related to the West Fertilizer plant. According to Dallas morning news, they cite, "national security concerns regarding ammonium nitrate, which can be highly explosive and used in bombs" to justify their appeal.
We provide these details as background information for writer Barry Grey's damning indictment of the US Government's intentional fear-mongering exploitation of the Boston Marathon tragedy that killed 3 people, injuring many more and complicity in the deaths of 14 people, injuring 200 and destruction of 150 buildings in Texas by Washington and the State of Texas. - Les Blough, Editor - Axis of Logic
23 April 2013 A tale of two cities The April 15 bombings in Boston continue to dominate the American media. The twin blasts near the finish line of the city’s annual marathon killed three people and wounded over 170 more, many seriously. But a more deadly and destructive explosion, the April 17 eruption of the West Fertilizer Company plant in the rural town of West, Texas, has virtually dropped out of the news. That event, to all appearances an industrial accident waiting to happen, killed 14 people and wounded 200, some critically. It virtually leveled a five-block residential area abutting the plant, flattening over 50 homes, gutting an apartment building and seriously damaging a middle school and nursing home. The pretext for the de facto state of siege imposed on the Boston metropolitan area—an unprecedented military-police lockdown of a US city—was the supposed need to protect the population. But rather than question the mobilization of thousands of troops and police and deployment of armored cars and Blackhawk helicopters—all to hunt down one 19-year-old youth—the media did, and continues to do, all it could to whip up fear and glorify an exercise in police state rule. Breathless TV anchors and commentators cheered on the warrantless and illegal house-to-house searches and hailed the killing of one suspect and capture of the other, demanding that the culprits be prosecuted and held accountable for their crime. Politicians from President Obama on down joined in, with Obama issuing a late-night televised statement from the White House to take credit for his role in capturing alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But there is no such concern for bringing to justice those responsible for the explosion that ripped through West, Texas. That tragedy is already being treated as just another industrial accident in a country where nearly 4 million workers are injured on the job each year and over 4,600 died from work-related injuries in 2011. The White House announced Tuesday that Obama will speak at a memorial service for the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion to be held Thursday at Baylor University in nearby Waco, Texas. The timing is convenient, since the president was already scheduled to hold a fundraiser in Dallas Wednesday evening and attend the dedication ceremony for George W. Bush’s library in Dallas on Thursday. The indifference of the media and politicians toward the killing and maiming of workers by companies that ignore safety and health regulations, and government agencies that lack both the resources and the desire to enforce them, highlights the fraud of their supposed concern for the safety of the people of Boston. The same day Obama makes his appearance at Baylor to shed crocodile tears for the victims of the West, Texas factory explosion, he will honor a man, his predecessor in the White House, who gutted federal safety and health agencies and instituted a policy of “voluntary self-compliance,” i.e., an open invitation for owners to ignore regulations, whatever the cost in the lives and limbs of their employees. Obama himself has continued the decades-long bipartisan policy of undermining occupational health and safety enforcement in the interests of corporate profit making. His new budget calls for a cut in compliance assistance programs carried out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Even more crippling, the agency’s budget is being slashed by 8 percent as a result of the sequester cuts signed into law by Obama in March. OSHA and other federal agencies, such as the Chemical Safety Board, are hopelessly undermanned. Between OSHA and state agencies, there are only 2,200 inspectors responsible for enforcing the safety of 130 million US workers. In 1977, OSHA had 37 inspectors for every million workers. Today it has only 22, a reduction of more than 40 percent. As a result, OSHA has all but abandoned regular inspections of work sites. Potential time bombs such as the West Fertilizer plant routinely breech safety rules and are either not inspected or occasionally cited and given token fines. The sprawling fertilizer storage and retail facility holds 540,000 pounds of explosive ammonium nitrate, the material used by Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. That is 1,350 times the amount that is supposed to trigger oversight by the Department of Homeland Security. The plant also stores 110,000 pounds of volatile anhydrous ammonia. Over the past decade, it has been fined for safety violations and operating without a permit. It has no automatic shutoff system, no firewalls and no emergency management plans. The last time OSHA inspected the plant was in 1985, when the agency found “serious violations” and fined the owners $30. There are some 6,000 such fertilizer retail centers nationwide, according to the Fertilizer Institute, a trade association. There are both economic and political reasons for the vast difference between the attitude of the state and the media to the events in Boston and the events in West, Texas. Economically, the state is dedicated to protecting private ownership and control of industry and opposing any measures that infringe on the “right” of owners to dictate working conditions and maximize profits. Politically, the ruling class is pursuing an agenda in Boston of sowing fear and anxiety so as to disorient the public, divert attention from its attack on working class living standards, and justify its policy of militarism and war, carried out under cover of the “war on terror.” It is haunted by fear of growing social discontent and the precarious state of global financial markets, which could trigger another financial crash and the eruption of mass social struggles. It is in preparation for such events that it is planning dictatorial forms of rule, such as those tested out last week in Boston. Barry Grey http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/23/pers-a23.html |
