
Laxed Security At Chemical Plants
#1 *Frank Ferreira*
Posted 15 November 2003 - 11:50 AM
CNN rolls out a three-part series on Chemical Security on Monday, November 17, continuing on Tuesday and Wednesday. The first run of each day will be during the 5pm-6pm ET hour on Wolf Blitzer reports. There will probably be other runs, but the first run will be on Wolf's program.
Log on to this site for more info
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/13/...ain583528.shtml

#3 *Guest*
Posted 15 November 2003 - 01:43 PM
Frank Ferreira, on Nov 15 2003, 11:50 AM, said:
CNN rolls out a three-part series on Chemical Security on Monday, November 17, continuing on Tuesday and Wednesday. The first run of each day will be during the 5pm-6pm ET hour on Wolf Blitzer reports. There will probably be other runs, but the first run will be on Wolf's program.
Log on to this site for more info
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/13/...ain583528.shtml
Don't worry there are 2 firemen & a Captain down there.
#4 *RobB_Guest*
Posted 16 November 2003 - 10:55 AM
#5
Posted 16 November 2003 - 01:06 PM
I have put together a page on KearnyOnTheWeb dealing with the local Environment. The first set of links deals with the Kuehne Chemical plant and links to articles on the plant and related topics.
Environment Page KearnyOnTheWeb
KOTW
#6
Posted 16 November 2003 - 06:51 PM
http://rothman.house.../rel_092503.htm
People should know - the threat is REAL! You can choose to ignore it if you wish, but hasn't there been enough ignored threats over the last few years?
Disagree with Frank Ferreira if you choose, but on this issue he is 100% correct and he has received 0% credit for bringing it to light.
Councilman Jim Mangin
#7
Posted 16 November 2003 - 09:51 PM
I added your suggested link to the KOTW Environmental Page.
Thanks for the suggestion.
KOTW
#8 *John H*
Posted 16 November 2003 - 10:13 PM
#9 *?????????*
Posted 17 November 2003 - 09:33 AM
RobB_Guest, on Nov 16 2003, 10:55 AM, said:
#11
Posted 17 November 2003 - 04:14 PM
#12
Posted 17 November 2003 - 05:13 PM
RobB, on Nov 17 2003, 04:14 PM, said:
RobB,
What Frank & Rosa found down at the Kuehne Plant and I was down there with them on one occasion was that there was no security. There was less security than there was outside my law office and I do not store dangerous chemicals. The idea behind the Corzine bill is to provide a uniform level of security and assistance to the chemical industry. Nobody is saying they should close down, however, they should be secure. Mr. Kuehne, Sr. (who died in a plane crash last year) lived in Asheville, North Carolina. Have you ever been in Asheville, North Carolina. Pristine Blue Mountains. He had a corporate jet which unfortunately crashed. Kuehne has two plants, one in South Kearny and another in Delaware. (Notice: Asheville North Carolina is as far away from South Kearny and Delaware as you can be and still be on the East Coast). Kuehne retrofitted and moderinzed their Delaware plant to keep only enough chlorine on hand for production purposes but not their South Kearny Plant. I live too close to the plant to not be concerned about making sure that all that can be done within reason is. But for Senator Corzine, I see no leadership from our governor, our mayor, or freeholder. Senator Corzine went so far as to criticize our governor. Do you think Corzine (who lives in Hoboken) knows something we don't? He knows enough to know that Frank & Rosa should be thanked not attacked.
I have not been down there recently but I understand that my tax dollars are paying for private security (Kearny Police Officers) to this multi-million(?) dollar company. Why?
John M. Pinho
#13 *Guest*
Posted 17 November 2003 - 08:14 PM
RobB, on Nov 17 2003, 04:14 PM, said:
clueless and paranoid, they work well together.
#14
Posted 17 November 2003 - 11:22 PM
#15
Posted 18 November 2003 - 06:57 AM
#16 *Guest*
Posted 18 November 2003 - 10:38 AM
JohnPinho, on Nov 17 2003, 05:13 PM, said:
RobB, on Nov 17 2003, 04:14 PM, said:
RobB,
What Frank & Rosa found down at the Kuehne Plant and I was down there with them on one occasion was that there was no security. There was less security than there was outside my law office and I do not store dangerous chemicals. The idea behind the Corzine bill is to provide a uniform level of security and assistance to the chemical industry. Nobody is saying they should close down, however, they should be secure. Mr. Kuehne, Sr. (who died in a plane crash last year) lived in Asheville, North Carolina. Have you ever been in Asheville, North Carolina. Pristine Blue Mountains. He had a corporate jet which unfortunately crashed. Kuehne has two plants, one in South Kearny and another in Delaware. (Notice: Asheville North Carolina is as far away from South Kearny and Delaware as you can be and still be on the East Coast). Kuehne retrofitted and moderinzed their Delaware plant to keep only enough chlorine on hand for production purposes but not their South Kearny Plant. I live too close to the plant to not be concerned about making sure that all that can be done within reason is. But for Senator Corzine, I see no leadership from our governor, our mayor, or freeholder. Senator Corzine went so far as to criticize our governor. Do you think Corzine (who lives in Hoboken) knows something we don't? He knows enough to know that Frank & Rosa should be thanked not attacked.
I have not been down there recently but I understand that my tax dollars are paying for private security (Kearny Police Officers) to this multi-million(?) dollar company. Why?
John M. Pinho
I think Kuehne pays to have KPD Officers for security. Just like all the other places in town (Shop Rite, K-Mart ect.). Although maybe Homeland Security could be footing the bill. In that case your taxes are paying for it. I just don't think the $ comes directly out of the towns buget.
#18 *Guest*
Posted 18 November 2003 - 04:59 PM
BLITZER: Making America more secure from terrorist attacks became job number one of the Bush administration after 9/11. Billions have been spent and many billions more have been promised to do just that.
But CNN's Jeanne Meserve now reports on what many warn is a vulnerability of the nation's chemical plants and how Congress, big business, and the nation's security agencies may be dropping the ball in protecting the public.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This chemical plant outside New York City is a potential weapon of mass destruction. Twelve million people live within a 14-mile radius of the plant. Frank Ferrara (ph) is one of them. Is he scared?
FRANK FERRARA: How's the word petrified? Petrified is probably a way of describing my reaction. MESERVE: It is one of 15,000 facilities across the U.S. which produce, use, or store toxic chemicals, facilities which have been identified in report after government report as possible terrorist targets. Ferrara began videotaping the plant's security a year ago. He found gates un-padlocked and unguarded. No one challenged his presence.
FRANK FERRARA: Still no padlocks on this gate.
MESERVE: This October a different picture when Ferrara took CNN to the plant. We found television cameras, barbed wire, and barricades. Armed security guards checked us out and called local police to question our crew. The plant president refused to talk on camera ordering his trucks to block our shots. That was in front.
In back from across the river, no one questioned our videotaping of the plant even though we were right next door to the County Sheriff's Department. From that vantage point we could clearly see the plant's proximity to Newark Airport and its location smack underneath a major highway.
FRANK FERRARA: What's there to stop anyone from dropping some sort of a projectile right onto the plant? And, not to mention look at the planes that are landing, 9/11 is a prime example of how an airplane becomes a deadly weapons. What's there to stop anyone from using a plane just to access the plant right from the air?
MESERVE: That American Chemistry Council is a trade group representing some of the largest chemical companies in the United States. It says the industry has made big strides in security since 9/11 by imposing guidelines on itself.
MARTY DURBIN, AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL: Everything from adding a gate to having security guards to having biometric identification, tightening up of their computer systems.
MESERVE: But council members own or operate only 1,000 of the 15,000 facilities identified as potential terrorist targets. The Department of Homeland Security working with industry has begun vulnerability assessments of plants that pose the greatest potential risk.
BOS LISCOUSKI, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: You look at the location of the plant, as I indicated how accessible it is and then, you know, we have a variety of scenarios that we run that we think are likely scenarios and then based upon those scenarios we'll examine the security capabilities and then make recommendations for enhancement.
MESERVE: But a quick tour of a handful of other plants showed little security. Where there were guards they were unarmed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CNN?
MESERVE: Nice to see you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice seeing you. MESERVE: In one case, a hole under a fence photographed unchallenged.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It causes me to lie awake at night.
MESERVE: Sal DePasquale (ph) worked in industrial security for more than 15 years. He says the latest industry and government security improvements are not nearly enough.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a fair idea as to what's been done. In my view it's mostly been window dressing. An adversary can easily drive up, shoot the guard, go onto the facility, place a bomb, rupture a vessel and release all of the material and if we have that we have a catastrophic event. September 11 would pale in comparison.
MESERVE: August, 2002, rural Festus, Missouri, 48,000 pounds of chlorine, about half a railcar accidentally released because of the failure of a small hose. Hundreds were evacuated. More than 60 went to the emergency room.
But hundreds of thousands of people could die with the release of a single railcar of chlorine in an urban setting according to the U.S. Naval Research Lab which created this computer simulation of a worst case toxic release scenario.
Remember this plant where we started next to the highway, next to the airport? It uses chlorine railcar after railcar full to make bleach and it is just a few miles from New York City.
MESERVE: To protect the public, critics say, government must take a much more forceful approach to chemical plant security but more than two years after 9/11 Congress has still not passed a law demanding tighter security.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Tomorrow Jeanne will take a look at the stalemate over chemical plant safety in the U.S. Congress, why some lawmakers don't want laws that would mandate chemical plant security, must watch TV tomorrow.
#19 *RobB_Guest*
Posted 18 November 2003 - 05:28 PM
#20 *Guest 1*
Posted 18 November 2003 - 07:29 PM

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