On January 16, 2002, highly toxic hydrogen sulfide gas leaked from a sewer manway at the Georgia-Pacific Naheola mill in Pennington, Alabama. Several people working near the manway were exposed to the gas. Two contractors from Burkes Construction, Inc., were killed. Eight people were injured–seven employees of Burkes Construction and one employee of Davison Transport, Inc. Choctaw County paramedics who transported the victims to hospitals reported symptoms of hydrogen sulfide exposure.

KEY ISSUES:
• REACTIVE HAZARD IDENTIFICATION
• HYDROGEN SULFIDE SAFETY
• EMERGENCY RESPONSE

ROOT CAUSES:
1. Good engineering and process safety practices were not followed when joining the drain from the truck unloading station and the oil pit to the acid sewer.
2. There was no management system to incorporate hazard warnings about mixing sodium hydrosulfide (NaSH) with acid into process safety information.

Image Credit: CSB