An Iberville parish official said on November 4 that on November 3, local time, an explosion occurred at the Dow Chemical plant, which affected the entire Baton Rouge area and destroyed the Plaquemine area. houses. Previously, workers restarted the facility’s facilities after an overnight power outage.
According to officials in Iberville and nearby parishes, a tank or container at the glycol processing plant exploded on the morning of Nov. 3, sending out a shock wave that shook nearby homes and resonated miles away. . Dow has been monitoring air quality since the blast, but said it has not found any pollutants that would be harmful to workers or nearby communities.
Dow wrote in a recent statement: “There is no ongoing emergency at the site. The site is stable and our Glycol 2 unit is being restored. The rest of our manufacturing operations are continuing to operate safely and reliably.”
Sheriff Shett Brett Stassi said the plant was trying to regain power that day, which required them to reboot the system. This may have caused the explosion.
Company officials did not say why the tank ruptured, but they have been communicating with state and local agencies. Crews stabilized the tank shortly after the explosion and planned to investigate what caused the failure. Dow directed more than 3,000 of its employees and contractors to perform their normal duties at the 1,500-acre facility outside of Plaquemine.
The explosion sent a puff of white steam into the air, and several people in a nearby parish reported hearing the blast, including a person who heard the blast in Zachary, 35 miles from the plant, posted on social media . No one was injured in the explosion.
A Dow spokesman said, the unit contains water as well as small amounts of sulfuric acid, ethylene oxide and nitrogen and is used for various production activities, including the production of coolants and polymers. ester. Depending on the concentration, chemical exposure may cause dizziness, rash, eye irritation, and difficulty breathing. Parish and company officials have not reported anyone with these symptoms.
Dow reported to the state Department of Environmental Quality the maximum amount of ethylene oxide (approximately 28 pounds) that could have escaped from a ruptured fuel tank. But they believe the actual amount leaked will be far less than that because monitoring cannot detect the chemicals in the air even if a small amount is burned.
The same device at the Dow plant reported a leak similar to DEQ’s after a power outage in May, releasing 334 pounds of ethylene oxide over a 26-hour period.
Although the spill did not exceed the hourly limit, the state government reported that the release of chemicals exceeded its annual allowable spill. DEQ records show Dow proposed a license replacement in the glycol division earlier this year, but Dow requested partial confidentiality, noting that it would reveal trade secrets.
In 2016, Iberville emergency officials complained that Dow had not immediately notified them of a chlorine spill at a Dow Industrial Park (Olin Corporation) facility.
Dow Chemical said at the time that they believed the source of the leak was within the plant boundaries, but nearly an hour later, it was discovered that the leak had extended beyond the plant. The Iberville Parish Office of Emergency Management issued a shelter-in-place warning after residents near the plant reported eye irritation and breathing difficulties. Parish officials said they have been in regular contact with Dow since the incident and there was no danger to the public other than the startling sound of the explosion.
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