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uPont plant on Strang Rd. in the coastal berg of La Porte, 20 miles outside of Houston. The toll included two brothers, a 40-year employee and a new hire of just eight months duration. They died, as is often the case in the Lone Brain Cell state, needlessly. It took the company 12 hours before acknowledging the deaths. It should surprise no one that the weekend fatalities were a consequence of a chemical leak. An additional worker was hospitalized as a precaution, but seems OK.
In a two-hour period from 4-6 AM, enough of the
release escaped containment to kill the employees who were responding to
the leaked chemical, methyl mercaptan, also known as methanethiol
(CH4S). In La Porte, it was used as feedstock in the insecticide and
fungicide manufacturing process. The odor stretched for 40 miles.
Our right-wing brothers and sisters who go
fiddlesticks berserk over the possible presence of the dreaded Ebola,
but most likely live in close proximity or downwind of a chemical that
makes the largely manufactured (1 death in the U.S.?) Ebola threat look
like a hangnail. First, because the Ebola threat is 99% political: The
“millions of Americans will die; it’s all Obama’s fault!” disappeared
from the front pages November 5th). Secondly, this CH4S stuff is
everywhere. In many parts of the U.S. it’s in your natural gas, but, not
to worry, you’ll be dead of bunches of other chemicals long before the
methyl mercaptan hits you.
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