ON-LINE WITH HOOKER Chemicals (pictured ta the foreground) which piped
bkydrechieric acid direct to the plant prior to last week's incident, ERCO Chemicals is
shown in the centre of this acrial photo, with Nova Lemberyard - where five men were
gansed - on the right.

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MENTION HERE
BADGE

ae
HOT WATER

TANKS

By PAT RICH

The overflow of
hydrochloric acid at the
ERCO chemical plant in

North Vancouver last week
was the latest of over 200
accidents that have occurred
in the plant over the last 20
years.

And while the Beak report
says there is little danger of a
major accident at the site it
adds later in the report that
ERCO’s safety record has
not been impressive.

While the report,
prepared for North Van-
couver District council in
1978, deals primarily with
Hooker Chemical, the
ERCO plant was also
analysed.

In the light of the acid spill
which hospitalized five
lumber workers adjacent to
the ERCO plant last Friday,
it is worth looking at what
the Beak report has to say
about ERCO.

“The ERCO plant is a
possible candidate for an
emergency situation with a
potential affect on the
community,” the report
says. “ The sodium chlorate
manufacturing process was
modified, however, as a
result of a major explosion in
the first year after start-up.”

The report was referring
to the ‘‘Maplewood
Disaster,” of 1957, when a
spark ignited a rubber belt
saturated with sodium
chlorate and damaged a
building on the site.

“The elimination of

Organic material from the

processing
pears to have eliminated this

hazard.”

The North Vancouver
ERCO plant manufactures
sodium chlorate for use in
pulp and paper plants.

In general, the Beak
report says there is little
danger of a spill from the
ERCO plant, which deals
with products other than
chlorine.

. the damage caused by
a non-chlorine spill is of a
minor nature Local
cleanup crews and the police
and fire departments would
have no difficulty handling
such spills.”

At the time the report was
written, Hooker was
shipping hydrochloric acid
to ERCO in tanker trucks.

“. at one time muniatic

(hydrochloric) acid was
pumped from Hooker
chemical for use in the

ERCO process. This pipeline
is now unused and is in poor
physical condition.”

Bul two years ago the
plant once again started
pumping the hydrochloric
acid from Hooker by
pipeline and this is when last
week's spill occurred.

For the next month the
pipeline will be closed down
so that new safeguards can
be installed to prevent
another leak, and the acid
will be shipped by truck.

“Until we are 100 per cent
sure that it won't happen
again we won't be using that
pumping device,” ERCO

" equipment ap- plant ‘manager William Kier

Throw
Summer

Beak report ERCO's safety
record is analysed and
reference is ma to ap-
proximately 200 industrial
accidents since 1959, nine
per cent of which involved
gas inhalations.

‘NOT TOO IMPRESSIVE’

The report compares
ERCO's safety record for the
years 1972, 1973 with the
National Safety Council rate

for the entire chemical
industry in North America at
that time..

In 1972 ERCO’s record
was twice as bad as the
national rate and in 1973 this
jumped to almost four times
as bad.

“Based on statistics,
ERCO's industrial safety
record is not’ too im-
pressive,” the report says.

“Amongst other ERCO
plants, the North Vancouver
plant has one of the poorest
safety records. Statistics do

not, however, give the
complete picture and
conclusions should not be
drawn without a more
detailed analysis of the
data.”

Since the Beak report,
ERCO’s safety record ap-
pears to have improved
ERCO's and Kier is quoted
as saying that last Friday's
incident will not break the
company’s record of three
years without an accident
because no time was lost
because of the spill.

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2046 Oak Bay Ave
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1980