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Industry constantly places us in grave, unnecessary danger by using chemicals that pose toxic and explosive risks, despite the availability of feasible, safer alternatives. An industrial accident or terrorist attack at a facility that stores a lot of chlorine gas, for example, could kill people working, living and passing through the area at the time of the accident. New Jersey has around 100 industrial facilities that handle extremely hazardous substances threatening their surrounding communities, many of which—perhaps all of which—could eliminate the threat by changing their processes. For example, instead of transporting and storing large volumes of chlorine gas, a plant can generate it on site, on an as-needed basis.

Right now NJPIRG is working with the Work Environment Council to ensure that our Department of Environmental Protection adopts the strongest chemical security rules in the country. As proposed, the rules would force the 100+ facilities to comprehensively analyze their processes, and determine if any safer ways exist to do what they do. Then the facilities have to do a thorough analysis of whether those “inherently safer technologies” are feasible. NJPIRG is working to make sure these analyses are public documents, and that companies must adopt safer technologies and processes.