Chemical Incident Reporting – Week of 11-11-23

NOTE: See here for series background.

Los Angeles, CA – 11-10-23

Local News Reports: Here, here, and here.

Leaking 55-gal drum of ‘non-hazardous’ cleaning chemical. 11 people evaluated after breathing fumes, one hospitalized.

CSB reportable incident.

Whitestown, NY – 11-17-23

Local News Reports: Here, here, and here.

Uncontrolled chemical reaction in metal cleaning operation, out-gassing caused 1 person to be taken to hospital according to one report.

An interesting set of conflicting news reports, one reports one person hospitalized, the other two site no injuries. One reports that a cleaning tank containing “nitric and hydrofluoric acids” was involved, another says “hydrochloric acid, nitric acid and a water solution”. I suspect that it was the later; aqua regia, is a common metal-cleaning solution and would be consistent with the reported yellow cloud.

Possible CSB reportable depending on whether someone was admitted to the hospital.