Chemical Incident Reporting – Week of 5-17-25

NOTE: See here for series background.

Breaux Bridge, LA– 5-15-25

Local News Report: Here, here, here, and here.

There was an anhydrous ammonia leak from a food processing facility due to a malfunctioning valve. No injuries or damages were reported.

Not CSB reportable.

Freeport, TX – 5-20-25

Local News Report: Here, here, and here.

There was chlorine gas release at a chemical plant, with the gas being detected off-site. Nearby residents were ordered to shelter in place. Four people were transported to the hospital, three have been released. There are no reports of damage because of the release.

Possible CSB reportable.

Review – Public ICS Disclosures – Week of 5-17-25 – Part 1

This week we have 14 vendor disclosures from ABB, AUMA Riester, Broadcom, Eclipse, HPE, Philips, Phoenix Contact, Siemens (2), SMA, VMware (2), Weidmueller, and Wiesemann & Theis.

Advisories

ABB Advisory - ABB published an advisory that describes 32 vulnerabilities (all with publicly available exploits) in their ASPECT Enterprise, NEXUS Series, and Matrix series products.

AUMA Advisory - CERT-VDE published an advisory that describes a classic buffer overflow vulnerability in multiple AUMA Riester products.

Broadcom Advisory - Broadcom published an advisory that discusses two vulnerabilities in multiple Brocade products.

Eclipse Advisory - Eclipse published an advisory that describes an XML external entity reference vulnerability in the Eclipse.

HPE Advisory - HPE published an advisory that discusses 13 vulnerabilities (one with publicly available exploit) in their NonStop servers.

Philips Advisory - Philips published an advisory that discusses two vulnerabilities (both listed in CISA’s KEV catalog) in their 860343 - ST80i product (applicable to software only products).

Phoenix Contact Advisory - Phoenix Contact published an advisory that describes an allocation of resources without limit or throttling vulnerability in AXL F BK and IL BK bus couplers.

Siemens Advisory #1 - Siemens published an advisory that describes an improper verification of cryptographic signature vulnerability in their SiPass integrated AC5102 / ACC-G2 and ACC-AP products.

Siemens Advisory #2 - Siemens published an advisory that describes an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in their SiPass integrated products.

SMA Advisory - CERT-VDE published an advisory that describes an incorrect resource transfer between spheres vulnerability in the SMA Classic Portal.

VMware Advisory #1 - Broadcom published an advisory that describes three vulnerabilities in the VMware Cloud Foundation product.

VMware Advisory #2 - Broadcom published an advisory that describes four vulnerabilities in multiple VMware products.

Weidmueller Advisory - CERT-VDE published an advisory that discusses an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in the Weidmueller ResMa product.

Wiesemann Advisory - CERT-VDE published an advisory that discusses a cross-site scripting vulnerability (with known public exploits) in multiple Wiesemann & Theis products.

 

For more information on these disclosures, including links to 3^rd party advisories, researcher reports, and exploits, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/public-ics-disclosures-week-of-5-19e - subscription required.

Review – S 1118 Introduced – Water System Threats

Back in March, Sen Markey (D,MA) introduced S 1118, the Water Intelligence, Security, and Cyber Threat Protection Act of 2025. The bill would require the EPA to carry out a program to support, and encourage participation in, the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (W-ISAC). The legislation would authorize $10 million for FY 2026 and FY 2027 to support this initiative.

This text of this bill is essentially identical to S 660, the Water System Threat Preparedness and Resilience Act of 2023, that was introduced by Markey in March of 2023. No action was taken on that bill in the 118^th Congress.

Moving Forward

Markey is a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there should be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in committee. I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition, and the spending issue is less of a problem in the Senate than in the House. At this point, this bill is more likely to move forward in committee than is the House bill.

Commentary

While the undefined term ‘malevolent acts’ used in §2(b)(4)(B) would certainly seem to include cyber incursions or attacks, I would prefer to see cybersecurity specifically addressed. To that end, I would suggest changing subparagraph (B) to read:

“(B) enhancing the preparedness of community water systems and publicly owned treatment works to identify, protect against, detect, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity threats (as defined in 6 USC 1501), malevolent acts (within the meaning of section 1433 of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300i–2)) or natural hazards.”

Transportation Chemical Incidents – Week of 4-19-25

Reporting Background

See this post for explanation, with the most recent update here (removed from paywall).

Data from PHMSA’s online database of transportation related chemical incidents that have been reported to the agency.

Incidents Summary

• Number of incidents – 292 (287 highway, 4 air, 1 rail, 0 water)

• Serious incidents – 0 (0 Bulk release, 0 evacuation, 0 injury, 0 death, 0 major artery closed, 0 fire/explosion, 6 no release)

• Total amount released – 625-gal

• Largest container involved – 25,062-gal DOT 117J100W Railcar {Petroleum Distillates, N.O.S. Or Petroleum Products, N.O.S.} Manway gasket deteriorated resulted in a vapor release.

• Largest amount spilled – 80-gal Plastic IBC {Corrosive Liquids, N.O.S.} Heavier freight stacked on top damaged IBC.

NOTE: Links above are to Form 5800.1 for the described incidents. Links are no longer working for report numbers in the database.

Most Interesting Chemical: Hydrofluoric Acid, Solution - A colorless fuming mobile aqueous solution with a pungent odor. Corrosive to metals and tissue. Highly toxic by ingestion and inhalation. Exposure to fumes or very short contact with liquid may cause severe painful burns; penetrates skin to cause deep-seated ulceration that may lead to gangrene. Fumes in air. Fumes are highly irritating, corrosive, and poisonous. Generates much heat on dissolution. Heat can cause spattering, fuming, etc. (Source: CameoChemicals.NOAA.gov).

 

CSB Releases Optima Belle Safety Video

Yesterday the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) announced that the Board had released a new safety video describing the December 2020 fatal explosion and fire at the Optima Belle chemical facility in Belle, West Virginia. The new safety video, called “Outsourcing Responsibility: Explosion at Optima Belle,” includes an animation of the events leading to the incident and an analysis of the root cause of the incident.

This incident was just another in the long series of incidents that the CSB has investigated over the years that involved essentially unregulated self-reactive chemicals. Yesterday’s announcement notes that:

“Among other important issues, the CSB’s report [link added] and the new video point out that although CDB-56 is a reactive chemical that can undergo a self-accelerating decomposition when heated, it and many other such reactive chemicals are not regulated under OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standard or the EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) rule. Consequently, the CSB recommended that OSHA amend the PSM standard to achieve more comprehensive control of reactive hazards that could have catastrophic consequences and that EPA amend the RMP rule to explicitly cover catastrophic reactive hazards that have the potential to seriously impact the public.”

Short Takes – 5-22-25

Venus Aerospace debuts potentially revolutionary rocket engine with landmark 1st flight. Space.com article. Pull quote: “Normally, rocket engines burn fuel in a combustion chamber in a steady, controlled process. RDREs [rotating detonation rocket engine] use a continuous detonation wave that travels in a circle within a ring-shaped chamber, which produces higher pressure and efficiency and results in increased thrust with less fuel.”

Space mining: corporate autocracy or global solidarity? TheSpaceReview.com article. Interesting discussion but ignores the increasing presence of China in space. Pull quote: “A firm commitment to benefit-sharing in this debate is therefore not merely about redistributing profits to the developing world. It is also about establishing global cooperative oversight over space mining and maintaining the discussion on future political power in outer space within the United Nations framework. Effective oversight and an agreed benefit-sharing mechanism would help prevent the emergence of tax havens at the national level by introducing a system of global taxation at the source. Ultimately, democratic systems were created to empower people, not corporations. Benefit-sharing would ensure a fair distribution of power and prevent the rise of new communities in space governed by corporate interests.”

An asteroid’s threatened impact may still impact planetary defense. TheSpaceReview.com article. Pull quote: “The biggest concern, it seemed at the hearing, was how astronomers would handle all of the data NEO Surveyor would return. Matthew Payne, director of the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, said at the hearing that NEO Surveyor, along with the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, will soon provide the center with ten times the data on NEO than all other current sources combined.”

3D printing deep in the body using ultrasound could deliver drugs, heal wounds. ChemistryWorld.com article. Pull quote: “‘I think it’s an excellent advance in the field of in situ bio-printing,’ says Skylar-Scott, who was not involved in the work. He suggests that, in future, it could be possible to create multi-material tissue scaffolds inside the body by injecting different bio-inks at different times. He does note that the axial resolution at present is only around 2mm, but suspects this will probably be improved in future. ‘I think it opens up a lot of different avenues to explore.’”

FAA provides final approval for next Starship launch. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “The FAA announced May 22 that it approved the return to flight for Starship. The FAA updated the launch license for Starship May 15 that included changes such as an increased launch rate from its Starbase facility in South Texas, but said then it would withhold approval for the next launch until it either closed the mishap investigation into the previous launch in March or made a “return to flight” determination.”

Dawn Aerospace begins sales of Aurora suborbital spaceplane. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “On a typical suborbital flight, Aurora will take off from a runway and immediately head straight up. The vehicle will reach top speeds of Mach 3.5 on a flight and offer about three minutes of microgravity during the peak of its trajectory. The overall flight, from takeoff to landing, will last about half an hour, Powell estimated, with most of that time spent gliding back to a runway landing after reentry.”

Review – Advisories Published – 5-22-25

Today CISA’s NCCIC-ICS published two control system security advisories for products from Rockwell and Lantronix.

Advisories

Rockwell Advisory - This advisory discusses an improper restriction of XML external entity reference vulnerability in the Rockwell FactoryTalk Historian-ThingWorx Connection Server.

Lantronix Advisory - This advisory describes an improper restriction of XML external entity reference vulnerability in the Lantronix Device Installer.

 

For more information on these advisories, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/advisories-published-5-22-25 - subscription required.