Toxic Chemical Spills

Barely a week goes by that we aren't treated to a story involving a spill or leak of a CHEMICAL which threatens an end to Life As We Know It. The reason there are so many of these stories, is because so many of them are just plain ridiculous. Incredulous readers frequently send examples to Chemical and Engineering News which publishes them for out amusement. Here are some recent examples.

In the December 7, 1992 issue, Marjorie Ottenberg and Karl Klager independently found a wire service report that "about 150 bags of toxic vinyl chloride fell off a . . . freight train . . . between Applegate and Rocklin." The California (why are we not surprised?) Department of Forestry was not concerned unless it rained. It seems that "the chemical, used to make plastic pipes, vaporizes when it becomes wet."

Is it just me, or does it seem odd that we would make pipes out of a substance that vaporizes when it becomes wet? First, vinyl chloride is a gas. It would not be shipped in bags. What fell off the train was certainly polyvinyl chloride, an important versatile plastic which is, indeed, used to make pipes. It is also absolutely innocuous. The increasing use of polyvinyl chloride piping is probably the single biggest step we have taken in the last thirty years to reduce lead in drinking water. (Don't get excited. There wasn't enough lead in drinking water before to worry about.)

In another Chemical and Engineering News item an anonymous reader sent in a report of 25,000 pounds of ball bearings that had spilled on a Kentucky highway. Before picking up the ball bearings, however, about 10 gallons of heptane had to be cleaned up. This was important because heptane was reported to cause "a hazardous reaction when exposed to metal."

Heptane is one of the many components of gasoline. The gas tanks of most of our cars are made of metal. End of story. Heptane does not react with metals.

Finally, Barry Peacock wrote in the November 16, 1992 issue that county hazard workers in Camden, NJ were called into a school to clean up a spill of "less than 100 mL of ethanol."

The Fib Finder figures it is likely that on that same day in Camden a careless bartender dropped a half full pint bottle of 100 proof vodka. Of course, this environmental calamity went unreported.