Company president charged criminally
Federal authorities have filed criminal charges against a company president after an explosion levelled the industrial site. The authorities say the president ignored several warnings that a process for making an explosive cleaning material for computer chips was unsafe.
In the indictment, authorities say that a test of the process less than a month before the fatal blast revealed the danger. A chemist at Concept Sciences Inc. made this notation in a laboratory notebook: "KABOOM! The distillation from (sample) 005-77 exploded. . . . Thank God no one got hurt."
The fatal explosion occurred Feb. 19, 1999, on the first full day of production of the highly concentrated form of hydroxylamine. The blast killed four employees and a man working in an adjacent business. Two other workers were injured.
U.S. Attorney Michael R. Stiles announced the 12-count indictment charging Irl "Chip" Ward, president of CSI of Allentown, with violating Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. "The reason we bring these charges is to deter other chemical companies from cutting corners," Stiles says.
The explosion happened in a 2,500-gallon fiberglass reinforced charge tank containing about 750 pounds of hydroxylamine. OSHA could not determine what ignited the tank, since the building was destroyed.
Ward faces a maximum of 24 months in prison, a $3 million fine, and one year of probation. The indictment also alleges that Ward ignored several warnings, including one from Ashland Chemical Co., a potential customer. The company said in a February 1998 report that the chemical "should not be distilled or heated to dryness, yet this is what CSI intends to do," that "the distillation scheme that CSI is planning to use probably will not work," and "this building is not a good location for a chemical process."
The indictment further alleges that on the evening of the explosion, a chemist and a supervisor ordered the plant shut down. Ward, however, allegedly said the process should continue, and left for Europe.
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