W.Va. delegation reacts to Bayer blast hearing on Capitol Hill

Several of the state's members of Congress are weighing in after a U.S. House committee hearing, covered by The Associated Press and others, showed that "Bayer CropScience withheld information from emergency responders after a deadly explosion at a West Virginia chemical plant last summer."

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce fielded testimony Tuesday after a probe revealed that that the company 'engaged in a campaign of secrecy' following the blast at the Institute plant that killed two people," the article said.

But as committee investigators explain in their summary memo, the explosion "was particularly ominous and unnerving because a 'residue treater' weighing several thousand pounds rocketed 50 feet through the plant, twisting steel beams, severing pipes, and destroying virtually everything in its path."

That massive projectile "came close to compromising a tank holding methyl isocyanate, or MIC," AP reports. "The same chemical was responsible for the deaths of thousands in Bhopal, India, when it leaked from a former Union Carbide plant in 1984."

"Had this projectile struck the MIC tank, the consequences could have eclipsed the 1984 disaster in India," the committee report said.

U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-2nd, told Public Broadcasting that "she doesn’t support replacing MIC just yet."

(Update) The report had noted that Bayer’s actions "stand in stark contrast to other chemical companies that have already switched to safer technologies. In 1985, for example, directly after the MIC catastrophe in India, another chemical company, DuPont, altered its processes to eliminate the storage of large volumes of MIC."

"MIC is a critical ingredient to a lot that are made at that plant," Capito said. "I couldn’t say shut it down. I don’t know if that would mean shutting the entire plant down."

Audio here (corrected link). Capito also issued a statement after the hearing. "I applaud the committee for providing much-needed scrutiny in this case," it read in part. "We know that an incident like this can put the community at risk and it’s only appropriate to expect that manufacturers will be forthright in addressing these incidents quickly and transparently."

U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., released a statement as well. "I commend those first responders who tried desperately, and successfully, to protect their communities, with little assistance from Bayer," it read in part. "Unfortunately, the fears and suspicions of the community have been confirmed by today's hearing."

Others with coverage include The Charleston Gazette and MetroNews. The House committee site offers transcripts of the opening statements of its chairmen, the submitted testimony of Tuesday's witnesses, photos taken after the blast, other supplemental documents and audio of the hearing.