At least 74 Texas sites report large stores of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate
A concrete dome now stands where the wooden fertilizer warehouse in Bryan burned to the ground. The blaze raged around a million pounds of ammonium nitrate and forced thousands to flee their homes. But the chemical never exploded as it did recently a hundred miles away in West.
The 2009 fire in Bryan did bring about a measure of safety. The warehouse’s owner, El Dorado Chemical Co., decided against another combustible structure and rebuilt instead with concrete.
But the Oklahoma-based company did not replace its 14 other wooden warehouses in Texas, even though Bryan’s was one of three to catch fire in the last decade. El Dorado officials said that would have been prohibitively expensive. And no regulations required it.
The deadly explosion in West, however, has forced new scrutiny of whether people are safe from ammonium nitrate’s potential dangers.
More, including an interactive map of those locations, at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/west-explosion/headlines/20130608-at-least-74-texas-sites-report-large-stores-of-potentially-explosive-ammonium-nitrate.ece .
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