A Disaster That Was Waiting To Happen

By now, you've heard of the disaster in West, Texas -- where a fertilizer plant blew up, killing more than a dozen people (many of them first responders) and injuring nearly 200 people. But as we learn more about that situation, it becomes apparent that this was a disaster just waiting to happen.

The plant was storing about 270 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. To put that in perspective, the federal building in Oklahoma City was blown up using this same type of fertilizer -- but the bomb in Oklahoma City only used about 40 of the 50lb bags of ammonium nitrate, or about one ton. It's no wonder that the explosion in West created a mushroom cloud, since it had the potential of being 270 times as large as the Oklahoma City blast.

The sad part was all of the building that had happened near this dangerous plant. Note on the map above, that there was a park, a retirement home, a middle school, a high school, and many individual family homes very close to the fertilizer plant. I would like to believe that the city leaders in West had no idea just how dangerous the plant was, and how much of the explosive ammonium nitrate was being stored at the plant -- because if they did know, then it was inexcusable to allow this much construction near the plant.

How many other small cities in this country are in the same shape? How many others, many of them so small they don't even have zoning commissions, are allowing construction near fertilizer, chemical, and other dangerous manufacturing facilities? These plants provide many needed good-paying jobs for the residents of these small communities, but it is time to rethink where these plants are allowed to locate (and what kind of construction is allowed around them).