Should the Environmental Protection Agency require companies that store and use large quantities of dangerous chemicals require a safer-alternatives analysis?

That's not a new question in Louisville. I've been raising it for years in stories dealing with plants in Rubbertown, the city's concentration of chemical manufacturing since the 1940s.

New Jersey does. So does Contra Costa County, California, where I worked before moving to Kentucky in 1999.

It's not a new question for the EPA, either, but it's asking it again, along with many other questions, as part of a federal chemical safety review triggered by last year's tragic explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, that killed 15 people, including 12 volunteer firefighters, and caused hundreds of injuries.

Congress is in gridlock, so passing stronger chemical safety legislation is unlikely. But in the aftermath of the Texas blast, President Obama signed an executive order that required federal agencies to study ways to tighten up the nation's chemical safety and security net.

As part of that process, EPA announced today it will publish a request for information on steps it could take to make chemical plants, like those that operate in Louisville, and other facilities that store large amounts of chemicals, safer and better neighbors.

Courier-Journal readers will know there's plenty at stake in Kentucky and Indiana, and especially Louisville. I've twice taken an indepth look at the EPA-required risk management plans of companies that store large quantities of dangerous chemicals in the Louisville area -- earlier this year, and a decade ago.

Kentucky has 76 such sites and Indiana has 84.

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In March, the C-J reported that the number of Louisville companies storing enough of those risky chemicals to require participation in the risk-management program had dropped 25 percent in a decade — with 21 reporting, down from 28 in 2004.

Some industrial plants had closed. Others, such as the Louisville Water Co., have made their operations safer — no longer using such reportable chemicals as chlorine because of the risk of a toxic release.


We also provided an interactive map that lets Louisville residents determine the chemical danger zones around their homes and businesses.


But are there safer alternatives? Say, a way to keep food warehouses cool without using anhydrous ammonia? It was a massive ammonia leak that killed those two workers at American Cold Storage, shattering families and friends.

Could DuPont use something other than hydrogen fluoride at its Rubbertown plant?

Of all the Kentucky plants listed in a recent national report, Dupont's Louisville plant put the most people at risk of death or illness: more than 870,000 people within a 16-mile radius, depending on weather conditions and wind direction.

DuPont officials have told me the answer is no, while offering assurances that "at DuPont, our employees share a personal and professional commitment to protecting the environment and the safety and health of the people in the communities in which we operate."

That report, by the way, was a collaboration of three organizations pressing the government and Congress for chemical policy reform, and greater access to information about chemical dangers: Environmental Justice and Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Coming Clean, and the Center for Effective Government.

Back to the EPA's action today: The agency's press release described a 90-day comment period and said the agency is asking for information and data on specific regulatory elements and process safety management approaches to enhance public health and safety, and aid local fire, police, and emergency response personnel to prepare for and respond to chemical emergencies.

It is also inquiring about how to improve public access to information related to risk management planning, without compromising plant security. And it's asking whether it should require more chemicals to be included in risk management planning.

Directions on how to comment should be posted on this EPA web page soon, the agency said.

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