CSB Meeting on T2 Laboratories Explosion

Today the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) published a notice in the Federal Register that it will be conducting a public meeting on September 15, 2009 concerning the results of it’s investigation into the December 19th, 2007 explosion and fire at the T2 Laboratories manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, FL. Reporting back in late 2007 and early 2008 indicated that this was one of the largest explosions that CSB had looked at to date. It was the apparent result of an over-pressurization of a reaction vessel that caused that vessel to fail. The resulting flammable-vapor release formed a large fuel-air-mixture cloud which provided the situation for the actual devastating explosion. The accident caused four on-site deaths, including one of the owners, and a large number of on- and off-site injuries. It will be interesting to see what CSB determined the cause of the accident to be. One thing that will almost certainly come out of the investigation is a renewed call by CSB for both EPA and OSHA to be more proactive in regulating reactive-chemistry safety. DHS might want to re-look at their stand on what constitutes sabotage COI after seeing the results of this meeting.