Board Issues Final Report on West Virginia Deadly Leak

September 22, 2011

The Chemical Safety Board has approved the final version of a report on accidents at a DuPont chemical plant in Belle in 2010.

Agency spokesman Daniel Horowitz tells The Charleston Gazette the final version doesn’t reflect major changes.

It says DuPont engineers didn’t build a safety enclosure to prevent workers from breathing the highly toxic gas phosgene.

A worker at the Belle plant died after inhaling a lethal dose of phosgene. The board says the worker likely wouldn’t have died had the enclosure been built.

DuPont says it no longer uses phosgene at the Belle plant and it has implemented safety recommendations from its own investigation. The company also says it will cooperate with the Chemical Safety Board and their safety suggestions.