Alberton activist wants U.S. Senate to prevent another spill
by Parris ja Young
Ms. Smith goes to D.C. Well, it's not really Ms. Smith. It's really our own Lucinda Hodges. She is going to Washington, D.C., in the company of Sofia Gidlund and Dr. Elizabeth Rantz, to do some citizen lobbying. Along the way the trio will be picking up some survivors and spokesfolk from communities that have experienced chemical accidents, as well as knowledgeable and vocal activists.
Caption: Dr. Elizabeth Rantz, Lucinda Hodges, and Sofia Gidlund compare notes at a recent screening of a movie about the 1996 Alberton mixed-chemical disaster.
Lucinda, who was foremost in the activism responding to the April 11, 1996, chlorine spill in Alberton's front yard has not been spending her every waking hour rehashing the incident, but she has been periodically active with projects related to the catastrophe. Not long ago she helped edit Lisa Mosca's film of the spill, A Toxic Train Ran Through It.
It is completely understandable that Lucinda is so interested in the increased security associated with toxic chemicals. She was caught in a chemical spill a few years before the Alberton incident. She lost two friends in that earlier experience. In Alberton, her two sons were threatened.
Greenpeace discovered the Alberton spill film while conducting research and Sofia Gidlund, Northwestern Field Organizer for Greenpeace, contacted Lucinda to enlist her aid in a bit of legislative work to take measures to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring again. Ms. Gidlund said, “It is hard to believe that even after a terrible accident like the Alberton 1996 derailment, chlorine gas is still frequently used at facilities across our nation. Safer cost-effective alternatives are readily available right now. Large corporations are putting one third of all Americans at risk of a chemical accident along the terrors of what the community of Alberton had to endure. It is completely unacceptable.”
Montana has eight vulnerable toxic chemical plants and each of these could put 10,000 people at risk if attacked by terrorists.
Ms. Gidlund said, “Safer and more secure alternatives are already being used at two plants in your state. On November 6, 2009 the House passed a compromise bill, the “Chemical and Water Security Act of 2009” (H.R. 2868). The bill would require all plants to evaluate safer chemical processes and conditionally requires the 107 highest risk plants to use safer cost-effective processes.“
Although the house has already passed HB 2868, requiring these security upgrades, the Senate has passed no equivalent bill.
The proposed bill would address plants that represent highly centralized targets, each lethally toxic. Most of these plants are protected the old-fashioned way with fences, lights and guards. Greenpeace, in an effort to protect people and the environment, has drafted the legislation to require plants to 1) search for safer chemicals and processes to reduce toxicity at these plants, and 2) improve security measures to deny access to possible terrorists. Also implied is 3) spill, leakage and accident security.
In order to make these changes deeper and quicker, the bill includes incentives to involve workers in the detection and planning that would forestall accidents and attacks. Information would be aired to the public to lubricate this process.
This improvement is necessary in Montana and is often embraced by the plant executives nationally, although there are a few plants that are hanging onto the old ways because revitalizing practices could cost money up front.
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Ms. Smith goes to D.C. Well, it's not really Ms. Smith. It's really our own Lucinda Hodges. She is going to Washington, D.C., in the company of Sofia Gidlund and Dr. Elizabeth Rantz, to do some citizen lobbying. Along the way the trio will be picking up some survivors and spokesfolk from communities that have experienced chemical accidents, as well as knowledgeable and vocal activists.
Caption: Dr. Elizabeth Rantz, Lucinda Hodges, and Sofia Gidlund compare notes at a recent screening of a movie about the 1996 Alberton mixed-chemical disaster.
Lucinda, who was foremost in the activism responding to the April 11, 1996, chlorine spill in Alberton's front yard has not been spending her every waking hour rehashing the incident, but she has been periodically active with projects related to the catastrophe. Not long ago she helped edit Lisa Mosca's film of the spill, A Toxic Train Ran Through It.
It is completely understandable that Lucinda is so interested in the increased security associated with toxic chemicals. She was caught in a chemical spill a few years before the Alberton incident. She lost two friends in that earlier experience. In Alberton, her two sons were threatened.
Greenpeace discovered the Alberton spill film while conducting research and Sofia Gidlund, Northwestern Field Organizer for Greenpeace, contacted Lucinda to enlist her aid in a bit of legislative work to take measures to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring again. Ms. Gidlund said, “It is hard to believe that even after a terrible accident like the Alberton 1996 derailment, chlorine gas is still frequently used at facilities across our nation. Safer cost-effective alternatives are readily available right now. Large corporations are putting one third of all Americans at risk of a chemical accident along the terrors of what the community of Alberton had to endure. It is completely unacceptable.”
Montana has eight vulnerable toxic chemical plants and each of these could put 10,000 people at risk if attacked by terrorists.
Ms. Gidlund said, “Safer and more secure alternatives are already being used at two plants in your state. On November 6, 2009 the House passed a compromise bill, the “Chemical and Water Security Act of 2009” (H.R. 2868). The bill would require all plants to evaluate safer chemical processes and conditionally requires the 107 highest risk plants to use safer cost-effective processes.“
Although the house has already passed HB 2868, requiring these security upgrades, the Senate has passed no equivalent bill.
The proposed bill would address plants that represent highly centralized targets, each lethally toxic. Most of these plants are protected the old-fashioned way with fences, lights and guards. Greenpeace, in an effort to protect people and the environment, has drafted the legislation to require plants to 1) search for safer chemicals and processes to reduce toxicity at these plants, and 2) improve security measures to deny access to possible terrorists. Also implied is 3) spill, leakage and accident security.
In order to make these changes deeper and quicker, the bill includes incentives to involve workers in the detection and planning that would forestall accidents and attacks. Information would be aired to the public to lubricate this process.
This improvement is necessary in Montana and is often embraced by the plant executives nationally, although there are a few plants that are hanging onto the old ways because revitalizing practices could cost money up front.
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