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Authors: Javier Moro
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taken to ensure the safety of the staff. A network of loudspeakers and sirens, modulating
differently according to the nature of the incident, was ready to go into action at the slightest alert. Crews of firemen
specialized in chemical fires and a system of automatic sprinklers could flood the factory with carbonic foam in a matter
of minutes. Dozens of red-painted boxes on every level equipped the workers with protective suits, breathing apparatus, ocular
rinses and decontamination showers. The plant was even equipped with a monitoring system that was constantly analyzing samples
taken from the atmosphere. If the safety level was exceeded, a loud alarm would sound and the location of the anomaly would
appear on a screen.
With its walls studded with pressure gauges, levers and buttons, the control room looked like the flight deck on a Concorde.
Day and night, different colored markers traced the plant’s every breath on rolls of graph paper. Keys, levers and handles
relayed electronic orders to open or close the stop-cocks, shut down or activate a circuit, launch or interrupt a production
or maintenance operation. One of the dials most carefully monitored was a temperature gauge. It was linked to thermometers
located on each of the tanks of methyl isocyanate used in the continuous production of Sevin. Given that the needles on these
instruments must never rise above 0° C, the builders of the American factory had lined the walls of the tanks with a skein
of coils that circulated cooling chloroform.
It was on the smell, or rather the lack thereof, that the initial results of these unprecedented efforts were judged. A properly
sealed chemical plant does not give off any smell. Such was not the case with the factories polluting the Kanawha Valley with
emissions that none of its two hundred and fifty thousand residents could escape. “The smells ended up permeating the trees,
flowers, the river water and even the air we breathed,” complained Pamela Nixon, a thirty-eight-year-old laboratory assistant
at the Saint Francis Hospital in South Charleston. Along with several hundred other black families, she lived in the Perkins
Avenue area, close by the tanks and chimneys of the Institute works. A few days before the launch of the new factory, Pamela
and her neighbors found a leaflet in their mailboxes sent by Union Carbide’s local management. Entitled
Plan for the General Evacuation of Institute
, this document listed the procedures to be observed in case of an incident. The first instruction was to stay put. “Switch
your radio to WCAW station, 689 meters medium wave, or your television to channel 8 on station WCHS,” the document instructed.
“This is the kind of announcement that you are likely to hear:
At ten o’clock this morning, the West Virginia state police reported an industrial accident involving dangerous chemical substances.
The accident occurred at 09.50 hours at the Institute site of the Union Carbide Company. All persons living in the vicinity
are invited to remain in their homes, close their doors and windows, turn off all fans and air-conditioning systems, and keep
a listening watch for further instructions. The next communication will be broadcast in five minutes.
” Pamela Nixon taped the sheet of paper to a corner of her fridge door.
Two weeks later, when the new plant had begun production, the young woman suddenly noticed a strange smell coming in through
her kitchen window. It was being carried on the breeze blowing, as usual, from the direction of the industrial structures
located upwind of her home. It was neither the smell of fish nor the odor of rotten eggs that she had grown accustomed to.
This new smell went to show that even if the plant she could see from her house was a model of advanced technology, it was
not, in fact, totally sealed. However it triggered a childhood memory. Like her mother’s cooking every Sunday after church,
the
differently according to the nature of the incident, was ready to go into action at the slightest alert. Crews of firemen
specialized in chemical fires and a system of automatic sprinklers could flood the factory with carbonic foam in a matter
of minutes. Dozens of red-painted boxes on every level equipped the workers with protective suits, breathing apparatus, ocular
rinses and decontamination showers. The plant was even equipped with a monitoring system that was constantly analyzing samples
taken from the atmosphere. If the safety level was exceeded, a loud alarm would sound and the location of the anomaly would
appear on a screen.
With its walls studded with pressure gauges, levers and buttons, the control room looked like the flight deck on a Concorde.
Day and night, different colored markers traced the plant’s every breath on rolls of graph paper. Keys, levers and handles
relayed electronic orders to open or close the stop-cocks, shut down or activate a circuit, launch or interrupt a production
or maintenance operation. One of the dials most carefully monitored was a temperature gauge. It was linked to thermometers
located on each of the tanks of methyl isocyanate used in the continuous production of Sevin. Given that the needles on these
instruments must never rise above 0° C, the builders of the American factory had lined the walls of the tanks with a skein
of coils that circulated cooling chloroform.
It was on the smell, or rather the lack thereof, that the initial results of these unprecedented efforts were judged. A properly
sealed chemical plant does not give off any smell. Such was not the case with the factories polluting the Kanawha Valley with
emissions that none of its two hundred and fifty thousand residents could escape. “The smells ended up permeating the trees,
flowers, the river water and even the air we breathed,” complained Pamela Nixon, a thirty-eight-year-old laboratory assistant
at the Saint Francis Hospital in South Charleston. Along with several hundred other black families, she lived in the Perkins
Avenue area, close by the tanks and chimneys of the Institute works. A few days before the launch of the new factory, Pamela
and her neighbors found a leaflet in their mailboxes sent by Union Carbide’s local management. Entitled
Plan for the General Evacuation of Institute
, this document listed the procedures to be observed in case of an incident. The first instruction was to stay put. “Switch
your radio to WCAW station, 689 meters medium wave, or your television to channel 8 on station WCHS,” the document instructed.
“This is the kind of announcement that you are likely to hear:
At ten o’clock this morning, the West Virginia state police reported an industrial accident involving dangerous chemical substances.
The accident occurred at 09.50 hours at the Institute site of the Union Carbide Company. All persons living in the vicinity
are invited to remain in their homes, close their doors and windows, turn off all fans and air-conditioning systems, and keep
a listening watch for further instructions. The next communication will be broadcast in five minutes.
” Pamela Nixon taped the sheet of paper to a corner of her fridge door.
Two weeks later, when the new plant had begun production, the young woman suddenly noticed a strange smell coming in through
her kitchen window. It was being carried on the breeze blowing, as usual, from the direction of the industrial structures
located upwind of her home. It was neither the smell of fish nor the odor of rotten eggs that she had grown accustomed to.
This new smell went to show that even if the plant she could see from her house was a model of advanced technology, it was
not, in fact, totally sealed. However it triggered a childhood memory. Like her mother’s cooking every Sunday after church,
the
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