Probe digs into records on toxins

Environmental investigators tried Monday to figure out what hazardous chemicals burned up last week in a massive chemical fire that caused thousands of people to evacuate Apex last week.

Scott Maris, vice president of regulatory affairs for EQ Industrial Services Co., said 2,700 containers of hazardous chemicals were on the site at the time of the fire, which sent flames 200 feet into the air. Maris said the company didn't want to speculate about a cause.

EQ in Apex functioned as a collection and transfer station for disposal of hazardous chemicals such as paints, thinners, oils, cleansers, detergents and antifreeze.

The chemicals, stored in barrels, 55-gallon drums and pails, would typically remain there for a few days, then would be reassembled in bulk and shipped for disposal, Maris said.

The short turnaround could make difficult the work of pinpointing exactly what was at the site at the time of the fire.

A team of investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an independent federal agency, interviewed company workers and asked the company to provide a number of documents, including safety procedures, incident records, inventories of chemicals and storage locations to determine whether incompatible chemicals were stored too close to each other.

Company officials spent Monday going through office records, trying to figure out the chemicals present from shipping manifests.

They turned over a 19-page list that includes the federal codes for the chemicals and the amounts on site. Many entries simply stated the contents as ignitable waste, corrosive waste or reactive waste, without stating the specific chemical compositions. State officials had not yet analyzed the list to determine what toxins went up in flames.

At a news conference, company officials said EQ did not handle or store chlorine gas there even though early reports by town officials mentioned the gas as the source of fumes. Apex Town Manager Bruce Radford and other town officials suggested chlorine, going on reports from the first firefighters who saw yellow smoke. About 30 firefighters, police officers and residents were treated for respiratory difficulties, bleary eyes and bloody noses.

"If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's not up to me to decide if it's a pintail or mallard duck," Radford said. "There was something in the constitution of this plume making people sick."

Maris did say the company had pool-cleaning chemicals, which contain chlorine bleach, at the site. But he didn't suggest they caused the medical problems.

"We're not sure what the cause of the respiratory distress was," Maris said.

Dr. A.J. Attar, a principal in Appealing Products Inc. of Raleigh, which makes devices to detect exposure to toxic gases, said the cloud of smoke from the EQ plant had to have included more than just pool-cleaning chemicals. Bleach alone won't burn, he said.

Attar said the fire probably involved organic matter, which includes petroleum products such as paints, solvents, pesticides, even plastics. Burned in large quantities, such materials can cause long-term damage to the liver and kidneys, he said.

"We're talking in a lot of ifs," Attar said, "but since it burned, we have to say that there were organic materials there."

EQ representatives will test the site for contamination and present a cleanup plan to the state Division of Waste Management. Once it is approved, the company can begin to clean the site and remove the waste materials and ash.

Experts with Waste Management will be on-site during the cleanup and sample collection to make sure that EQ follows the cleanup plan approved by DENR.

Clean Water for North Carolina, an environmental group that has advocated for stronger community right-to-know laws, said the circumstances of the Apex fire reveal longstanding shortcomings in the reporting of hazardous-waste storage and shipments.

Waste management facilities such as EQ's, which briefly store hazardous materials before shipment or treatment, have had a reporting loophole since the passage of the federal Emergency Planning and Right to Know Act in 1986, said Hope Taylor-Guevara, the organization's executive director.

The law was passed amid concerns about the storage of toxic chemicals after the disaster in Bhopal, India, where a massive explosion occurred.

"The public is not aware of these facilities and the threat that they pose, or how little local emergency management can do when a fire involving such a lethal mixture occurs," Taylor-Guevara said. "These facilities handle massive quantities of explosive, flammable and extremely toxic materials. First responders, with the best of intentions to control a fire or prevent damage or public exposure, end up as the first victims of such an event."

Maris said the fire department would have a list of the chemicals that Environmental Quality handles but not "live" information about what was at the site on a given day.