Reader Comment – 01-25-10 Olympic Chlorine

Anonymous left a comment about my blog posting on the congressional hearing on hospital response to chemical terrorist attacks. Anonymous wrote: “Very good question to raise. My favorite EPA chemical engineer/regulator said his experience indicated hospitals were in blissful ignorance of both facility and transportation risks nearby. I am working currently on ensuring that folks working on NBA All-Stars game and SuperBowl security arrangements take some of this into account. You might check out the Vancouver Olympics-related controversy: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/search/node/chlorine” Actually I have been following this story, starting with a blog here on the off-site storage of chlorine rail cars. The link provided by Anonymous does provide a lengthy list of pages from the Vancouver Observer that address the issues caused by a nearby chlorine production facility. I have read many of the articles and must say that while there is a certain amount of sensationalism in the writing there is also a decent degree of honest concern about potential problems. Fred Millar, a vocal reader of this blog, figures prominently in many of the articles. Fred has been a consistent voice on the security and safety issues related to the rail transportation of TIH chemicals. While Fred and I don’t always agree on how to deal with these issues, I have long respected his warnings about potential risks related to TIH chemicals. I did a quick check of the VancouverObserver.com web site and could only find one reference to the unresolved ammonium nitrate issue that I have previously mentioned in this blog. It seems to me that the potential detonation of a couple thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate near an Olympic venue is a easier terrorist attack than an attack on chlorine rail cars. Oh well, I guess that VBIED’s are such a common news story that it just isn’t as sexy as a chlorine gas attack.