Two Explosions, Two Different Responses

TWO EXPLOSIONS, TWO RESPONSES
op-ed by Dr. Marty Nathan
Friday, May 3, 2013, Daily Hampshire Gazette

NORTHAMPTON, MA --- Two days separated the explosions at the Boston
Marathon and West Texas. On April 15, two homemade bombs went off in
Copley Square, killing three people and wounding more than 180. On April
17 a mushroom cloud rose over the West Fertilizer factory, killing 15
people, wounding over 200, destroying 60 houses and evacuating a community.

The responses? 

After the tragedy in Boston, President Obama offered his
prayers and said "any responsible individuals, any responsible groups
will feel the full weight of justice." Thousands of police, state
troopers and FBI swarmed over the Boston area to track down the Tsarnaev
brothers, killing the older brother and capturing the younger, who is
now in federal prison. Despite the fact that the Tsarnaevs were refugees
from the former Soviet Union and their case had nothing to do with the
present immigration debate, Republicans threaten to block the pending
immigration compromise as a result of their actions. There has been a
spate of anti-Muslim acts of violence nationally and every day the
national airwaves, cyberspace and newspapers are filled with further
attack details, speculation about motives and proposals to prevent
further such acts of terrorism.
 

          The carnage of West, Texas, slipped quietly off those same pages and
          airwaves. President Obama offered only his prayers, not the full weight of justice.
          No discussion on the front page of the New York Times of catching the
          (corporate) criminals, no SWAT teams or house-to-house searches, no blaming
          Government officials for dropping the investigative ball that would have
          prevented this horror. And yet, it certainly could have been prevented.

(In the Asian building collapse, the Owner was arrested, and his property seized. -Ed.)

According to Reuters, the West Fertilizer Plant was the site of improper
storage of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate. This is 1,350 times the amount that would require a facility to self-report its stockpile to
the Department of Homeland Security. Ammonium nitrate is a fertilizer
used around the world, and is safe if handled properly. However, it is
highly explosive when ignited, as it was by Timothy McVeigh in the
Oklahoma City bombing.

In fact, West Fertilizer had not been fully inspected by any agency
since 2006, when a neighbor complained to the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality about a strong ammonia smell coming from the
plant. That same year the EPA fined the company $2,300 for failing to
update a risk management Plan.

The explosion resulted from a workplace catastrophe and the main agency
responsible for protecting the workers there (and thereby the
community), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, should
have identified and removed the risk. But when was the last OSHA
inspection? According to the Christian Science Monitor, in 1985, more
than 25 years ago, multiple "serious" violations of federal';; safety
requirements were detected, for which the company paid a grand total of
$30 in fines.

Why the yawning disparity between the two responses? The deaths,
injuries and destruction of West Fertilizer are a Corporate crime. Our
government and our media have different standards for individual and 
Corporate crimes.

In 2010, 4,500 men and women died in the workplace, more than the number
of U.S. soldiers who died in the entire Iraq War. Another 50,000 workers
die annually from chronic diseases contracted in the workplace. Yet the
only agency that protects them --- us --- has always been understaffed,
so that a plant like West Fertilizer can expect to be inspected by OSHA
only once every 67 years. The 2,200 inspectors at both federal and state
level cover 7.5 million workplaces employing more than 130 million
workers. That's one inspector for every 58,000 workers. And the fines,
if ever paid, are a pittance.

Now, enter the federal Sequester. The agency will have to cut its $565
million budget by 8.2 percent, which the White House predicted would
mean 1,200 fewer workplace Inspections.

The Boston Marathon bombing made every one of us think hard about our
own security. But West, Texas, reminds us real security is a complex and
expensive process that results from government investment in
environmental and workplace safety and health, access to necessities for
all our people, particularly the most vulnerable, and ensuring that
there are not different standards of justice for different types of
deadly and preventable violence.

I will be joining Northampton (Massachusetts) City councilors, students, educators,
workers and advocates for the poor on the steps of Northampton City Hall
May 17 at 3:45 p.m. to demand a "Budget for All." We need comprehensive
security for our communities.

Marty Nathan, M.D., of Northampton, MA, is assistant professor of
medicine at Tufts University in Boston, and a family practitioner at
Baystate Brightwood Health Center in Springfield, MA