The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board did good work identifying the causes of the explosion last year at the Barton Solvents chemical storage unit in Valley Center and in making safety recommendations to the industry and government regulators. The board determined that the explosion resulted from a buildup of flammable vapor-air mixture inside a storage tank that was ignited by a spark from a measuring float inside the tank. The tank explosion then set off a chain reaction of explosions in other tanks, which likely could have been prevented if the tanks hadn’t been so close together and had been better ventilated.
Though this explosion was large and required widespread evacuations, it was fortunate that no one died and that the chemical plume went straight up instead of spreading out over the town, lead investigator Randy McClure told The Eagle editorial board. Here’s hoping that the lessons learned in this accident can help prevent other explosions and the loss of life in the future.
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In some ways this is similar to the explosion that took down an airliner over Long Island Sound some years ago. It was noted then that they should blanket these tanks with inert gas – N2 or CO2. That would have prevented both explosions.
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