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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
It's my understanding that they weren't required to carry any more insurance than what they had.
But they were violating the law in terms of how much dangerous product they were storing in one location - although surely anyone inspecting those facilities would have quickly determined that laws were being violated.
A broader issue is that when you are part of a business good ole boys network, you expect to be cut some slack - both by lax legislation, and lax enforcement of whatever legislation exists. In places like Texas, this is how business has operated for decades (if not longer). Everyone operates under the principle that low probability situations do not need to be legislated for, or managed properly. Otherwise how would the good ole boys network make shitloads of money (their god-given right, after all)? [&:]

What regulations were enforced differently in this case?

Reuters: TX Fertilizer Plant Was Storing "1,350 Times The Amount Of Ammonium Nitrate That Would Normally Trigger Safety Oversight By The U.S. Department Of Homeland Security." On April 20, Reuters reported that the West, Texas, fertilizer plant that exploded on April 17, owned by West Fertilizer, had been storing 270 tons of ammonium nitrate. Reuters noted that "[f]ertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance," which "can also be used in bomb making," but that West Fertilizer "did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do." [Reuters, 4/20/13]
Please explain to me how a plant storing 1,350 TIMES the amount of ammonium nitrate that would require oversight by Homeland Security does so without any inspectors who work with ammonium nitrate not realizing this? How large of a plant does one need to store 1,350 TIMES the amount - wouldn't the sheer size of the plant tip someone off that probably too much was being stored in one place?

This is approximately the volume of an Olympic swimming pool, if we take ammonium nitrate to be the same weight as an equal volume of water.

The problem also comes in that the DHS relies on business to self-report. Since West TX Fertilizer hadn't self-reported, it's that much more difficult fpr DHS to know they need to police them.

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Ammonium Nitrate is a highly dangerous substance (someone else has already mentioned the Texas disaster of '47; in addition I believe Tim McVeigh used ammonium nitrate for the OKC bombings. This is a regulated substance because it is hugely dangerous. But I am trying to understand how an entire plant (with all the people who would be involved in such a plant) goes unnoticed by people who must have been aware that TOO MUCH was being stored there. As with many other regulatory issues, people sometimes look the other way.....

Explosions of ammonium nitrate are not common.

Post #105 in the Rick Perry political cartoon (this link will get you close) has links showing that it isn't a common occurrence at all.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
First you wanted to know why the EPA (a federal agency) wasn't there than you had queries about DHS (another federal agency) nowhere in your post were you willing to question the business friendly state of Texas for having little regulatory legislation and less enforcement than your local aspca

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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
You asked me what regulations were enforced differently and I've pointed it out.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/west-explosion/headlines/20130501-44-texas-facilities-have-large-stores-of-ammonium-nitrate-state-records-show.ece
Suffice it to say that the regulatory system is not working properly with regards to this dangerous substance. How can so many plants be operating in this way? Does this not strike you as odd?
And saying ammonium nitrate has not been the cause of many accidents is an absurd comment. Nuclear power plants have not been a cause of many accidents in the U.S. either - does that mean we shouldn't regulate nuclear power, or try to ensure safety measures when dealing with radioactive substances??
The issue is that this stuff is so explosive that when something happens, it is very bad. Hence the regulation to begin with.

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“I’ve been here with TFI for 23 years and have never seen anything like this in our industry and never even anything close to this. It catches everyone’s attention because it is completely foreign to our industry so our folks will be looking at this trying to figure out what happened and if there are lessons to be learned that we do learn from them and stay open to looking and investigating what happened.”

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An explosion like the one at the West Fertilizer plant is incredibly unusual, according to local fertilizer companies in Navarro County.
“All the conditions have to be perfectly right for the anhydrous ammonia to blow up,” explained Matt Murray, owner of ABC in Corsicana. “The fertilizer isn’t considered an explosive. It’s just there’s things you can do with it to make it explode. It’s simply an oxidizer.”

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Ammonium nitrate is explosive under the right conditions. Mixed with something flammable and exposed to flame, it can explode. Timothy McVeigh used 2 tons of ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, in 1995.
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Chemical safety experts aren't very concerned with ammonium nitrate, says Neal Langerman, a consultant with Advanced Chemical Safety in San Diego. In general, ammonium nitrate "being stored in a fertilizer distribution facility is not a high-risk activity" because when properly stored, it is unlikely to explode.
Still, Haywood says, ammonium nitrate can be extremely dangerous, especially if exposed to temperatures over 400 degrees — which might have happened during the fire at the West depot.