DuPont shuts down Belle SAR for good

Charleston, W.Va.-DuPont Co. officials are continuing a staged resumption of operations at their Belle plant following three operating incidents in January, the worst of which caused the death Jan. 23 of a 32-year plant veteran who was sprayed with phosgene. But a prepared company statement disclosed that Belle’s sulfuric acid recovery (SAR) unit will not be restarted because of plans announced earlier to take it out of operation by the end of this month. The sulfuric acid at the Belle plant is a byproduct of the methacrylic acid production process. “In April 2009, DuPont and Lucite announced plans to shut down the sulfuric acid recovery unit at Belle by March 31, 2010 as part of a settlement agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the State of West Virginia,” the statement disclosed. “In light of the current voluntary pause in production and the brief timeline to March 31, the SAR unit will not be restarted. We do not anticipate any job losses as a result of these actions. We expect to place employees assigned to the SAR unit into existing openings at the Belle plant.” DuPont also reported that most other units that were not involved in any of the recent incidents have been restarted, and the voluntary safety stand-down had been lifted. The statement went on, “We are continuing our thorough investigation of the three incidents that occurred in January. In addition to the DuPont investigation, state and federal agencies are conducting their own investigations.”