Excellent Article: “What We Don’t Know About Chemical Accidents”

When I started reading this article by Karl Stephan, I thought … “Oh no. Here we go again.” What made me think that? This statement:

“Home to a large number of refining and petrochemical plants and other high-tech industries, Texas has had more than its share of explosions, fires, leaks of toxic and polluting chemicals, and other chemical-related accidents.”

After all, I thought, how could he know that Texas had more than their fair share of chemical accidents? Fair share by what standards? Amounts of chemicals produced? Employment? After all, should accidents be allotted equally to all states no matter what there industrial mix is?

But I my first impression was wrong. The article turned into a discussion of a real problem. You can’t find accurate statistics about chemical accidents.  Even worse, you can’t get agreement on what chemical incidents should be reported and who they should be reported to.

The article doesn’t propose any wonderful solution, but it is worth reading. So see:

http://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-we-dont-know-about-chemical.html