http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57290/texas-deregulation-harvey-chemical-plants/ clipped- AP In fact, and this is the delectable part of the entire farce, there apparently is a law in Texas that specifically forbids many cities and towns from designing their own fire codes. Hell, the state even passed a laww forbidding cities and towns from requiring fire sprinklers vin new construction. Freedom! Two years ago, Dempsey and his team put together a staggering eight poart series about the lack of rudimentary safety precautions that exists in what has become the petrochemical capital of the country. The series took a chunk out of both the recklessness of the Texas state government and out of the spavined state of the EPA and OSHA even under President Obama, the latter problems having gotten worse under the current administration. You should read the whole thing, but Part Six of the series is particularly relevant. It describes how the city government of Houston, and its responsible officials, are flying completely blind as to what is being manufactured and stored in the hundreds of plants in and around the city. From the Chronicle: A black plume big enough to show up on weather radar touched the sky that Thursday morning in May. Explosions echoed through Spring Branch. Students fled a nearby school. A substance like tar coated cars in the neighborhood. Blood-red fluids spilled into a creek, choking fish and turtles. More than 400 firefighters responded over two days, and when they were done, piles of torched barrels and melted plastic tanks lay in a snow-white blanket of fire-fighting foam. Days later, they still didn't know what they'd been fighting. No city inspector had been inside the place for years, and the owner's records burned up in the blaze. The firefighters didn't even know there was a chemical facility in the neighborhood, one surrounded by houses and apartments, a nursing home and a gun shop full of ammunition…The fire department in the nation's fourth-largest city has no idea where most hazardous chemicals are, forgetting lessons learned in a near-disaster 21 years ago, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.
Death Toll Reaches 45 Harvey's death toll has risen to at least 45, and officials fear as floodwaters finally recede, the death toll will continue to rise. According to the Harris County Flood Control District, there are an estimated 136,000 flooded structures in the Houston area, which equates to roughly 10 percent of registered structures in Harris County Appraisal District. As for the Chemical Plant, this one's a Fiasco; a serious breakdown in Policy and Transparency, let alone firefighters fighting Chemical fires of which they never knew what they were fighting.... http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/texas/chemical-breakdown/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/03/us/houston-texas-flood-aftermath/index.html At least 13 toxic waste sites in Texas were flooded or damaged by Hurricane Harvey, adding to the challenges as the state and the region begin cleanup efforts following the deadly storm. The Environmental Protection Agency announced Saturday that it had assessed 41 *Superfund sites using aerial images, and determined the ones badly affected by the storm. The impact of flooding on the sites is (still and will be) unknown for another 10-15 days or until Flood Waters Refkngcede. The EPA said its workers have not been able to "safely access the sites" but are ready to do so as soon as the floodwaters recede. A *Superfund site is land that is contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the EPA as a candidate for cleanup because it poses a risk to human health and/or the environment. The 13 affected sites have industrial waste from petrochemical companies, acid compounds, solvents and pesticides. In the Houston area, authorities had said it would take 10-15 days for floodwaters to recede.
