Authorities delay requests for emergency plans after Croda gas leak

With a potentially explosive chemical leaking under the busiest bridge in Delaware, emergency officials are glad they prepared for the worst.

In late August, shortly after Croda Inc. began producing ethylene oxide in a new plant at the base of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, more than 30 emergency responders practiced what they would do if the extremely flammable, explosive and carcinogenic chemical escaped.

Just three months later, they were called back to the scene, only this time it wasn't a drill.

Ethylene oxide was leaking out of a storage tank. Nearby residents were being told to stay in their homes. All traffic was stopped on the bridge at the tail end of the busy Thanksgiving weekend.

David Irwin, chairman of the New Castle County Local Emergency Planning Committee, said the response was exactly right and mirrored what they had just trained for.

Holloway Terrace Fire Co. was the lead decision-maker on scene. They were ultimately responsible for making the call to shut down the nearby highway and bridge with close coordination and support from Croda, state and county officials and the Delaware River and Bay Authority, which owns the bridge.

While some people complained of breathing issues and eye irritation, those on scene and with knowledge of the response said everything went according to plan.

In the days after the release, Croda said the culprit was a failed gasket. But other questions remain.

Neither Croda nor DNREC officials have said how much gas leaked. And many have questions about why more people were not alerted, why the area was not evacuated and just how much danger they may have been in.

'We need to know the details': Croda neighbors have ‘right to know’ extent of gas leak

Many of those answers are in the emergency plans, which should be available to the public. 

A federal community right-to-know law called the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act requires emergency management plans and other data be accessible to the public.

But the fear of that information getting into the hands of terrorists has made some emergency plan-related documents difficult to access — if they can be accessed at all —- since 9/11, Irwin said.

The News Journal has been requesting access to those documents, specifically in regard to Croda, since the leak. County and state officials have either denied those requests or have yet to make them available.

"Whatever laws they’re using to justify the secrecy of this particular incident at Croda, certainly the spirit of openness and transparency needs to be paramount here," said John Flaherty of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. "In this case, we're not even looking at the answers. We're looking at the supporting documentation that they have been inspected and are operating in the public's interest."

Federal officials immediately granted a request to review one document at the federal reading room in Philadelphia, but it shed little light on the specifics of what happens in case of an emergency at Croda.

"As far as we were concerned, we proved once again that pre-planning, tabletop exercises and ongoing training provides maximum safety to the community, to the site and to the environment," Irwin said, adding that no one was injured that night.

Irwin said that late August drill was the first exercise done regarding the manufactured ethylene oxide with Croda, an international specialty chemical manufacturing company.

Internationally, ethylene oxide is used as a fumigant and fungicide, to make ethylene glycol for antifreeze, to sterilize medical equipment and other consumer goods, and as a chemical intermediate, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At Croda, ethylene oxide is used in the company’s products. They use it to make liquids that combine mixtures that otherwise would separate, like face creams and cosmetics.

In 2015, Croda gained state approval to manufacture the chemical onsite instead of shipping it by train from Texas, reducing the risk of issues along the way.

Ethylene oxide is a widely used chemical, but is also extremely flammable and explosive when exposed to an ignition source. It reacts easily with other chemicals, is a known carcinogen and can cause serious respiratory problems when inhaled even for a short period of time.

The last serious incident involving the chemical occurred more than a decade ago at a sterilization plant in California, when it only took about 50 pounds of the gas to cause extensive structural damage and injure four people.

This year, Croda started manufacturing its own ethylene oxide by using corn-based bio-ethanol instead of petroleum-based hydrocarbons.

For now, Croda will not be manufacturing any ethylene oxide at the plant, said Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Shawn Garvin.

That process will not restart until company and state officials are confident it can be done safely.

How did this happen?

The most dangerous times at chemical manufacturing plants are usually when operations are starting or stopping, said Dr. Marc Levin, a clinical professor of energy production at Washington State University.

"Those are the nonroutine kind of operations," he said. "There is risk associated with everything we do. It's about managing that risk, and it's fairly complex."

As Croda began a new operation at a decades-old facility along the Delaware River, an incorrect gasket installed during construction failed, leading to a leak of ethylene oxide.

"Unfortunately those things do happen," said Levin, who previously worked in private industry for refining operations, safety, and fire and explosion analysis for building siting. "You try to make sure they're checked before-hand. Clearly this one slipped through. And you can't see gaskets once they're installed."

But unless nearby residents were checking documents posted on DNREC's online environmental navigator, they likely would not have known a process approved three years ago had just begun, said New Castle Councilman Jea Street about his constituents.

The Atlas Point facility has been the site of manufacturing operations for more than 75 years, before the Delaware Memorial Bridge was even built.

The nearly 180-acre site is also used by Fuji Film to manufacture ink and colorants mainly for ink-jet printers. That process takes place on a different part of the site.

Was the emergency alert effective?

If the released chemical had met a spark and led to a fire or explosion, would people have been prepared? It depends on who you ask.

"I would say yes," said A.J. Schall Jr., director of the Delaware Emergency Management Agency. "Is everything going to go according to plan without any speed bumps? I can't say that. It depends on what hand you're dealt."

New Castle County emergency management officials said they used a database of registered numbers and landlines to notify at-risk residents in the neighborhoods of Collins Park, Swanwyck, Buttonwood, Castle Hills and along Lukens Drive to stay inside, county's spokesman Jason Miller said. 

Of the 3,760 alerts, only 1,050 connected, Miller said.

"It's one of those things where cell phones have hurt us," said Schall. People who no longer have landlines and have not voluntarily signed up for Delaware's Code RED system would not have gotten those calls.

Lisa Lerch, who lives in Castle Hills and works across the street from Croda, learned about the leak on the news.

Lerch said working and living by the Cherry Lane chemical plant is a concern, she's adding gas masks to her home emergency kit.

"At work, it's a dead-end street," she said. "You really can't get out if there is an emergency and someone's blocking it."

Dave Carpenter, the county's emergency management coordinator, said he believes enough was done to alert the public.

The county opted not to send messages to specific cell towers and alert all nearby cell phones.

Rob Snyder, deputy chief of Holloway Terrace Fire Company and the person in charge of the scene at the leak, said he asked the county to notify nearby residents with a reverse 9-1-1 call. He said, though, that he didn't know a cell phone alert could be sent.

Street, the councilman, said the notification was "insufficient" and having the plant so close to communities is "an undue and unfair burden."

If people don't know what happens at the plant, and have not signed up with DEMA's notification system, they would likely be in the dark in the face of a chemical leak.

Newly elected state representative Melissa Minor-Brown said she is urging Croda to be more transparent with the community. She and others attended a quarterly Community Advisory Committee meeting with Croda on Wednesday night.

That meeting is closed to the public and by invitation only, according to company spokeswoman Cara Eaton.

Minor-Brown said Croda detailed the events of that Sunday evening and answered some concerns that were brought up.

"They have to publicly address the community," Minor-Brown said. "Because people are afraid."

How to sign up for emergency notifications

Delawareans have to create an account and sign up for emergency alerts online at dema.delaware.gov/services/DENS.shtml.

What happened?

Nearly two weeks later, officials have not said how much ethylene oxide escaped into the atmosphere. State and company officials said that information will not be released until an investigation is complete.

"Things aren't always as they appear," Levin said. "You have to check out various possible notions of what took place and verify everything."

After discovering the leak, Croda notified local fire and police. Firefighters and state Hazmat experts used water to dissipate the chemical. Breaking up a vapor cloud can reduce the risk of fire or explosion if the gas meets an ignition source, experts told The News Journal.

Croda officials, the commanding fire company and Hazmat experts decided the bridge should be closed to traffic. Delaware's Emergency Management Agency and county emergency officials were on standby if needed.

"During the incident, the facility was shut down safely and securely, containing the release," Eaton said in a press release the day after the leak. "Independent monitoring during and after the incident has confirmed that there was no point at which there was an unsafe level of ethylene oxide in the air outside the facility perimeter."

DNREC's Garvin had previously told The News Journal that state monitoring systems detected elevated levels of ethylene oxide. Some people nearby complained of nausea, headaches and other respiratory ailments, conditions that generally only appear when the chemical is encountered at relatively high concentrations.

Delaware Memorial Bridge: Gas leak prompted fears of car fires, chemical exposure

The Delaware River and Bay Authority estimated that shutting down the bridge cost more than $120,000. The agency is deciding whether to seek compensation from Croda, Jim Salmon of DRBA said.

Levin said his experience investigating similar incidents tells him it could take weeks or months to determine what went wrong and how much gas escaped.

The report of a bad gasket raises other questions, Levin said. Was it the wrong size? Wrong material? How did it get there? Are there problems elsewhere?

"You don't take anything for granted when you have a failure of any piece of equipment," Levin said. "You look at everything and don't assume it was one certain thing or not. But I'm glad it was a gasket as opposed to an equipment failure. That would, generally, tell me that the release rate was lower than it could have been."

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford. Contact Josephine Peterson at (302) 324-2856 or jhpeterson@delawareonline.com. Follow her @jopeterson93.

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