Careless On Refinery Row?

One witness likened the enormous ball of fire to a nuclear explosion. A truck driver thought it looked as if "a rocket just took off." Shortly before midnight on the day after the Fourth of July, a devastating explosion leveled a block-square section of the 564-acre Atlantic Richfield chemical plant in Channelview, Texas, east of Houston. At least 17 workers died. The blast occurred while crews were working near tanks that hold petrochemical residues and waste water from the plant.

The ARCO disaster would be disturbing enough on its own, but it was just the latest incident in a string of fires, tanker spills and explosions that have rocked the Gulf Coast petrochemical strip from Texas to Louisiana. Last October, 23 employees died and 130 were injured when explosions sent 100-ft. walls of flame through a Phillips Petroleum plastics plant in nearby Pasadena. At the same plant on June 8, eight workers were hospitalized after a fire in a resin-producing unit. That same day explosions severely damaged the 886-ft. oil tanker Mega Borg, spewing a 30-mile-long slick off the Texas coast. Early last week traffic was halted on the busy Houston ship channel while firemen struggled to contain a roaring oil fire that shot flames more than 90 ft. into the air.

Frightened workers and safety officials say even worse disasters may lie in store for a hazardous business that is paying too little heed to safety considerations. Union leaders contend that oil refineries, currently running | at full capacity, are pushing their employees too hard. After last October's disaster, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Phillips for 566 "willful" violations of safety procedures. In April the agency criticized the petrochemical industry in general for unsafe work practices. Even the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, has issued new standards for refineries and is urging the Federal Government to use them as the basis for safety regulations.