It’s been nearly two years since the blast at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas on March 23, 2005, killed 15 workers and injured 180 others.  Nine months following the Texas City disaster, The Tony Mazzocchi Center for Health, Safety and Environmental Education sent a survey to local unions at each of 71 United Steelworkers-represented refineries. The survey sought to determine the extent to which conditions similar to those that led to the BP Texas City catastrophe exist at the nation’s other refineries and what is being done to correct those conditions. 

The report from the study: Beyond Texas City: The State of Process Safety in the Unionized U.S. Oil Refining Industry, October 2007 can be found at www.usw.org/usw/program/content/BeyondTexasCity.php. The participatory research team for the study included OHS section Members Tobi Lippin and Kristin Bradley-Bull of New Perspectives Consulting Group, and Tom McQuiston of the Tony Mazzocchi Center for Health, Safety and Environmental Education.  Also, an article by Leo Gerard based on the study appears in the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/texas-city_b_75839.html .