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Gas Suppliers Say Area Facilities Safe

Posted on: Saturday, 16 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jul. 15--The Praxair Inc. plant in south St. Louis was a neighbor few noticed until June 24, when a series of explosions and fires sent gas cylinders flying through the walls of nearby homes.

Since then, the fires -- which are still under investigation -- have neighbors of the plant asking what Praxair does there, and whether it belongs in a residential area. The facility is a packaging plant, a place where nitrogen, argon and other industrial gases are repackaged into cylinders for delivery to corporate customers.

Explosions such as the one in St. Louis are rare, but industrial gas facilities are not. Several of the industry's largest players, including Praxair, have operations in the Lehigh Valley where they handle or package large quantities of gases.

The Valley's plants have, in the past, raised public concerns of their own. Most recently, Praxair's facility in Bethlehem -- now operated by a joint venture between Praxair and another company -- was the site of three industrial accidents in about four months in 2001.

The gases companies downplay the risk of a St. Louis-type accident in the Valley, pointing to their safety records and experience.

Some also stress that their local operations work with inflammable gases. Any gas under high pressure carries certain safety risks, but companies draw a distinction between the substances they handle locally and the flammable propane and acetylene at the heart of the St. Louis explosion.

"It's important to realize that a large percent of the gases we handle are not the flammable gases," said Jim Ely, a spokesman for Airgas Inc. of Radnor, Delaware County.

Airgas operates a "fill plant" on Race Street in Allentown, one of 300 such facilities the company owns nationwide, Ely said.

The company buys nitrogen and other gases in bulk quantities from producers such as Air Products and Chemicals of Trexlertown. Airgas then repackages the gases into smaller containers, such as helium tanks for florists' shops or oxygen tanks for hospitals.

In 2002, Airgas bought Air Products' U.S. packaged-gas business, involving industrial or specialized gases packaged in cylinders. The deal included 100 facilities in 30 states, none of them local. Airgas' Allentown plant was already operating.

Records show no significant problems at the Airgas plant in the past decade.

Air Products has no major gas production or handling facilities of its own in the Lehigh Valley. Its Trexlertown headquarters complex is used for office and research space. The company's nearest major gas facility is in the rural Schuylkill County village of Hometown, where Air Products makes a variety of specialized gases.

Air Products collaborated with rival gasmaker BOC Gases in 1998 on a joint venture, investing $40 million to revamp a gases plant at Market and Jennings streets, Bethlehem.

BOC spokesman Peter Gavigan said the plant makes oxygen, nitrogen and argon for both companies' use. BOC operates the plant, but BOC and Air Products own it in a 50-50 partnership called East Coast Oxygen.

"They take the product and sell it, and we take the product and sell it," he said.

Air Products spokesman Art George said his company uses the plant to fill tanker trucks, which make deliveries to eastern Pennsylvania, parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

BOC also operates a national scheduling office in Bethlehem, which sets up delivery times.

Gavigan, like Airgas' Frey, said the gases made in Bethlehem are low in volatility. He also said major industrial gas companies have "very stringent safety practices" in place.

"The industrial gas companies, in general, have a very high standard for handling those products," he said.

Air Products has promoted itself as the safest company in the business, a claim backed up by the American Chemistry Council trade group. Last year, the council ranked Air Products the safest of the country's eight large-scale chemical companies.

Of course, Praxair promotes safety, too, declaring in a statement that safety "is a major factor in [its] design and operating strategy."

The cause of last month's explosions has not been pinpointed, but investigators said early on that they saw no sign of worker error. St. Louis officials also praised Praxair employees for carrying out a well-planned and well-rehearsed emergency evacuation. No one was seriously hurt, though five people were reportedly treated for minor injuries.

In the Lehigh Valley, Praxair and joint-venture partner Welco-CGI Gas Technologies seem to have overcome problems that caused a series of alerts in recent years.

In June 1997, a 100-pound cylinder of sulfur dioxide ruptured there, causing minor injuries to two workers. In September of that year, a Praxair chemist died when the chlorine tank he was working on exploded.

In June 2001, an equipment fire forced the evacuation of 70 employees and 25 nearby homes. In September of that year, a hydrogen plume ignited, setting off safety systems. And in November, leaking hydrogen gas caught fire, forcing 30 workers to evacuate and raising concern among nearby residents.

That concern seems to have cooled. And Kevin Moyzan, Bethlehem's fire commissioner, said his department has not been called to the plant in recent memory.

"They've been quiet," Moyzan said. "I can't tell you the last time we had an incident there."

At the time of those problems, the plant was solely operated by Praxair. Now, it's a joint operation of Praxair and Welco-CGI of Newark, N.J. Praxair spokesman John Van Devender said most of the plant's about 100 workers are Welco-CGI employees.

Van Devender said the plant packages, but does not manufacture, various gases. Northampton County hazardous materials records list more than a dozen substances handled there in significant quantities, ranging from hydrogen and argon to acetylene.

Welco-CGI officials could not be reached for comment.

The two most publicized explosions in the Lehigh Valley in recent years did not involve industrial gases.

In February, an underground gasoline pipeline in South Whitehall Township exploded, forcing the temporary evacuation of dozens of residents. No serious injuries were reported from the blast, which sent a widely visible plume of black smoke into the sky.

And, in February 1999, five people died in a chemicals explosion at Concept Sciences Inc. in Hanover Township, Lehigh County. The cause of the explosion has not been determined, though officials said it occurred in a tank of an explosive chemical called hydroxylamine.

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PX, ARG, BOC, BOX,

Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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