18 local companies on Fire Marshall’s potential dust explosion list

Two years after the explosion at CTA Acoustics in Corbin, 18 Whitley County facilities are on a list of 2,200 Kentucky facilities with potentially combustible dust, according to state Fire Marshal Albert Mitchell.”This doesn’t mean they have problem, the list is just a starting place for finding potential problems,” Van Cook, Executive Director and Public Relations Officer for the fire marshal’s office said. “We just have to go see and make sure they don’t have a problem.”
“We’ve never done this but as you know in Corbin, it needs to be done,” Cook said.
Cook said all the plants on the list had been sent letters informing them of the upcoming inspections. He said his office has received numerous calls from plants requesting inspectors to take a look at their facilities.
Cook did not release the names of the companies on the list but confirmed that 18 were located in Whitley County.
Mitchell told a meeting of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in Washington last week, that inspectors have begun checking the plants but with only 30 inspectors on staff, it would take a year and a half to cover the 2,200 facilities.
The board’s investigation of the Feb. 20, 2003 CTA explosion found that the state shared the blame with CTA and Borden Chemicals for failures that led to the accident, saying the state had failed to inspect CTA.
The board is considering national standards to control hazardous dust in the workplace in response to the CTA explosion and others across the country.
According to an article in the Courier Journal, Mitchell said the Corbin accident underscored the state’s lack of information about the potential for dust explosions.
The paper said board staff members and fire and safety experts who spoke to the agency said awareness of dust hazards among workers, management and officials was spotty at best.
Explosive dust can be produced in the making of metal, plastic and wood-based products, tire production, painting operations and even food processing.
Mitchell said inspectors tell plant operators that if dust is bigger than a pencil point and is stacked higher than a paper clip, it’s combustible.
According to Mitchell, the Corbin accident has heightened knowledge of the problem but his inspectors still have trouble convincing a company that a substance is combustible when its label says it is not.
“A material might be safe when it is tightly packed for shipping, but once it is being used in a manufacturing process that generates dust, the hazard increases,” Mitchell said.
According to the Courier Journal, Mike Wright, director of health, safety and environment for the United Steelworkers of America conducts demonstrations for workers on the hazards of dust.
Wright puts dust in a small plastic bag, shakes it up and then drops it over an open flame, causing a small explosion.
The dust he uses is nondairy creamer.
Mitchell said three small explosions have occurred in Kentucky plants this year.
Dust explosions are preventable and Mitchell says his inspectors are asking plants to “prove to us that it is not combustible.”
Cook said state inspectors have already begun the inspections and the plants have been very cooperative so far.
“Once we get a chance to inspect more of he properties, the list will be whittled down to the ones that actually are in danger,” Cook said.
Cook said, factories that are found to have a potential problem will have to undergo inspections every six months to insure that the problem is being taken care of.