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In the tragic wake of Bhopal, safety reviews are under way in most of the U.S., the world's biggest producer and user of MIC and other pesticides. Nearly a billion tons of pesticides and herbicides, comprising 225 different chemicals, was produced in the U.S. last year, and an additional 79 million lbs. was imported. MIC is stored or used at plants in New York, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama and Georgia. Those insecticides not dependent on the compound, like malathion, are also construct ed of toxic molecules. Dow Chemical Co., one of the nation's largest producers of agricultural and industrial chemicals, is reconsidering its safety and spillage codes. American Cyanamid, a major chemical manufacturer, is busy comparing its emergency procedures with those of Union Carbide.
Nor are chemical firms alone in their soul searching. As the world's industrial leader, the U.S. has 219 operating oil refineries, more than any other country. It is crisscrossed by 250,000 miles of oil pipelines and 1.3 million miles of natural gas conduits. Sometimes refineries and storage tanks are clumped together like rusting armadas of iron behemoths, belching smoke into the sky. Along the New Jersey Turnpike, near the towns of Linden and Carteret, many oil storage tanks are higher than a ten-story apartment building. Should a plane from nearby Newark International Airport crash into that complex, the resulting fireball could engulf one of the most heavily populated areas of the nation. Fire drills at plants in northern New Jersey have been stepped up since the Mexican explosion.
Given the potential for calamity, the safety record of the American chemical and energy industries is impressive. Last year U.S. chemical firms had 5.2 reported occupational injuries per 100 workers, an outstanding record in manufacturing. Declares Geraldine Cox, technical director for the Chemical Manufacturers' Association: "We are the safest industry in the U.S."
Disasters do take place, of course, but they are more likely to strike developing nations than industrialized ones. The reasons are both complex and delicate. Some critics charge that corporate greed is at fault, that big businesses will set up shop in a poor nation simply to take advantage of cheap labor and lax laws. Says David Bull, chief of the Environment Liaison Center in Nairobi, Kenya: "There is a growing tendency for the larger multinational chemical concerns to locate their more hazardous factories in developing countries to escape the stringent safety regulations which they must follow at home."