The Guardian 20 April 2013 19.39 BST
The plant was last inspected for safety in 2011, according to a Risk Management Plan filed with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The company, which has fewer than 10 employees, had provided no contingency plan to the EPA for a major explosion or fire at the site. It told the EPA in 2011 that a typical emergency scenario at the facility that holds anhydrous ammonia could result in a small release in gas form.
The EPA fined the company $2,300 in 2006 for failing to implement a risk management plan.
Last year, the fertilizer plant stored 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as required, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate - which can also be used in bomb making - unaware of any danger there.
For the farmers who grow corn, wheat, milo and cotton in the area, the fertilizer plant was critical to their operations. Not only did the plant mix fertilizer for farmers - selling it by the ton - and deliver it if needed, but it also had a steady business in sprayers and other equipment for applying the chemicals.
It was a place where farmers gathered for coffee and a chat, and a place where friends and family worked together.
Talk of fines and safety violations at the plant have raised the ire of some who did business there and who do not know now whether to be angry, just sad, or both.
"I know a lot of people are putting the blame on it," Danny Mynar, who farms about 2,000 acres outside West, said of the plant. "But it served a lot of ranchers and farmers."
The plant was last inspected for safety in 2011, according to a Risk Management Plan filed with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The company, which has fewer than 10 employees, had provided no contingency plan to the EPA for a major explosion or fire at the site. It told the EPA in 2011 that a typical emergency scenario at the facility that holds anhydrous ammonia could result in a small release in gas form.
The EPA fined the company $2,300 in 2006 for failing to implement a risk management plan.
Last year, the fertilizer plant stored 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as required, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate - which can also be used in bomb making - unaware of any danger there.
For the farmers who grow corn, wheat, milo and cotton in the area, the fertilizer plant was critical to their operations. Not only did the plant mix fertilizer for farmers - selling it by the ton - and deliver it if needed, but it also had a steady business in sprayers and other equipment for applying the chemicals.
It was a place where farmers gathered for coffee and a chat, and a place where friends and family worked together.
Talk of fines and safety violations at the plant have raised the ire of some who did business there and who do not know now whether to be angry, just sad, or both.
"I know a lot of people are putting the blame on it," Danny Mynar, who farms about 2,000 acres outside West, said of the plant. "But it served a lot of ranchers and farmers."
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