Chesapeake, Va.-City officials are still waiting for a response from Allied Terminals after issuing an order late last month to empty one of the terminal’s large liquid fertilizer storage tanks believed to have the same welding defects that caused a nearby tank to break apart and release 2 million gallons of liquid fertilizer. “We’ve got a lot of nervous people worried about that tank,” city spokesman Mark Cox told Green Markets. “So we’ve issued a notice of violation giving Allied 15 days to respond.” He said as far as he knows the city hasn’t heard anything since Chesapeake Fire Chief Steve Best notified Allied that Tank 209, which has a 2 million-gallon capacity and is within 250 feet of some of the homes that were flooded Nov. 12 (GM Nov. 17, p. 12), has been declared an unsafe structure that poses an “imminent threat to public safety.” Best said at least six welding deficiencies have been discovered on Tank 209, and they are similar to the defects that likely caused the collapse of 201. He ordered the tank to be emptied within 15 days. Cox said the decision to issue the order regarding the suspect tank was based on recommendations issued to Allied by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board after the board’s inspection and the city’s own investigations. He said he didn’t know about CSB Chairman John Bresland suggesting that Allied may have known about welding defects on some of its tanks at least four years ago. He was quoted in the press as saying, “Part of our investigation will be what did they know and when did they know it?” In his published comments, Bresland also said he was dissatisfied with Allied Terminals’ response to the safety board’s urgent recommendations Dec. 8 to safeguard three other fertilizer tanks, including tank 209, with similar welding defects.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain