Truly, this is scandalous news. What the hell is the Department of Homeland Security doing anyway? Voluntary security efforts means 'free to do whatever', and obviously, that isn't working out so well. The chemical plants have coasted long enough, time to get tougher with them.
Chicago Tribune news : Risk seen at chemical plants
Despite new voluntary security efforts by the chemical industry, much of the nation remains at risk to terrorist attacks and accidents at chemical plants and storage facilities, experts told a Senate committee Wednesday. “Little progress has been made,” said Carol Andress of the Environmental Defense Fund at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. She said that according to Environmental Protection Agency records, each of 2,500 to 2,800 facilities would put more than 10,000 people at risk of injury or death if there were a major chemical release. Andress' figures came from a Congressional Research Service report last week that ranked Illinois fourth in the nation in terms of risk to local populations of 100,000 to 999,000 from “worst-case scenario” chemical-facility terrorist attacks or accidents. Illinois has as many as 25 such facilities, compared with 67 in Texas, 58 in California and 50 in Louisiana....
Glenn Erwin, prevention program director for the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, said his organization last year surveyed 125 facilities that were adhering to the industry's voluntary plans and found “serious gaps between the ideal we desire and the reality with which we live.”
“As recently as this summer, I stood at the main entrance to one of the nation's major oil refineries and watched pickup trucks only slow down as guards waved them through,” Erwin said.
“When I asked the employee standing with me who they were, he said they were temporary workers employed by contractors.”
