INSIGHT: Stolen chlorine raises alarm in Congress

26 April 2007 17:29  [Source: ICIS news]

By Joe Kamalick

 

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--The theft of several hundred pounds of chlorine in California has triggered alarm in Congress and raised anew the issue of inherently safer technology (IST) as a security mandate for chemical production and use sites.

 

Industry and congressional reports indicate that someone stole a 150-pound chlorine cylinder from a California water treatment facility on 20 February this year.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was quickly notified.

 

According to the Chlorine Institute, a trade group representing chlorine producers and major commercial users, the FBI suspected that thieves mistakenly stole the chlorine cylinder, thinking it was some other chemical they needed for production of illicit drugs.

 

That theory collapsed when crooks returned to the same facility on 15 April and took two more chlorine cylinders. 

 

Separately, thieves tried unsuccessfully to haul chlorine cylinders away from at least two other California water treatment plants.

 

Informed of the thefts and attempted thefts, institute president Arthur Dungan sent an e-mail alert to member firms, recommending that they review their security measures.

 

That memo came to the attention of Congress - and it got a lot of attention.

 

Representative Bennie Thompson (Democrat-Mississippi), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter earlier this week to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, expressing deep concern and demanding that the department respond to the thefts “with the utmost sense of urgency”.

 

Thompson noted that chlorine canisters have been used along with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in terrorist attacks in Iraq.

 

Citing those attacks in Iraq and the theft of chlorine cylinders in California, Thompson said: “These events make clear the reality that the terrorist risk associated with these deadly chemicals is by no means theoretical.”

 

There is ample reason for concern. If released by explosion or other means, the chlorine in one 150-pound cylinder could within 30 minutes cause death or major pulmonary damage to anyone within a half-mile radius of the release.

 

The thefts have raised security concerns, according to Dungan, because there appears to be little legitimate use for two or three chlorine cylinders.

 

Chlorine has no intrinsic black market value that might bring a quick profit for thieves in a back-alley resale. 

 

For example, thieves frequently steal drums of copper electric cable, burn off the plastic insulation and sell the copper for a hefty profit in the so-called “grey market”.

 

Chlorine is widely used across multiple sectors. Its principal use is in the making of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and other plastics, but it also plays an intermediate role in the production of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, pulp and paper, and of course in treating both drinking water and sewage.

 

There’s just not a lot you could do commercially with only a couple of hundred pounds of the stuff.

 

Except, perhaps, to make an improvised chemical weapon.

 

The Department of Homeland Security said the stolen chlorine cylinders is a matter for the FBI.

 

However, department spokesman Russ Knocke said: “We are very mindful of how chlorine has been used on the battlefield in Iraq, and we are analyzing that and taking that information into consideration to better secure our infrastructure.”

 

“There is no credible intelligence,” he said, “to suggest a threat to the homeland involving chlorine.” Nor, he added, is there any credible intelligence suggesting an imminent domestic US terrorist threat by any other means.

 

The FBI has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the chlorine thefts.

 

Congressman Thompson and three other House members demanded that Homeland Security chief Chertoff report on what steps his department has taken in response to the thefts and whether there have been other instances across the country where chlorine cylinders have walked off.

 

However, Thompson and his Democrat colleagues want more than just a resolution of the thefts.

 

“Based on the recent attacks in Iraq and on these domestic thefts and attempted thefts,” the members of Congress asked Chertoff, “do you believe that all water treatment facilities should immediately take steps to eliminate the use of chlorine? If not, why not?”

 

In addition, Thompson and his colleagues asked Chertoff when his department “plans to issue regulations to ensure that the highest risk chemical facilities implement measures to reduce or eliminate the consequences of a catastrophic accident or terrorist attack by switching to safer chemicals or processes when it is economically and technologically feasible for them to do so?”

 

The Department of Homeland Security has no mandate under law to impose inherently safer technology - the use of less toxic feedstocks and/or lower production temperatures and pressures - as a security measure. However, Democrats in Congress have been pressing for just such a mandate for years.

 

They failed to get an IST mandate in the chemical plant site security legislation passed late last year, but Democrats have introduced new legislation in this Democrat-majority 110th Congress that would make inherently safer technology an obligatory security measure for chemicals manufacturing.

 

Congressman Thompson’s demand to Homeland Security makes it clear that the Democrats are pushing for an IST regulatory mandate even in the absence of legislation requiring it.

By: Joe Kamalick
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