Chemical catastrophe could be our Katrina

[Kire]

Chemical catastrophe could be our Katrina
Tom Moran - On Politics
Wednesday, September 07, 2005

To the citizens of New Orleans, a break in the levees around Lake Pontchartrain was always the nightmare scenario.

But the warnings came and went. And in the end, the people who mattered most were not listening.

In New Jersey, the nightmare threat is a terrorist attack on one of our huge chemical plants. We've had our warnings, too.

Here are the facts: New Jersey has seven plants that, if attacked, could each put at least 1million people at risk of injury or death, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Try to imagine the scale of that disaster.

"Think about Nagasaki or Hiroshima," says retired Adm. James M. Loy, the deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security from 2003 to 2005. "Many would say the chemical scenario could be the worst of all of them, if the plume went in the right direction over a populated area."

More: http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/moran/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/112607331127380.xml&coll=1

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. How many plants that contain WMD do we actually have?? More

than anyone wants to admit I am sure.

[absolutezero]

2. I work in the chemical industry

Trust me, we aren't producing any chemical weapons, those are all out in the desert someplace.

But a terrorist hit on a pharmacuetical plant could release acids or solvents into the air among other nasty things. Thats the point of the article

[NJCher]

3. and recall....

How Corzine tried to protect us with a bill that would require safeguards to the chemical industry.

He got nowhere thanks to bushco and the chemical industry.




Cher