Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Ammonium Nitrate Facilities

Reuters posted a report about last month's explosion in West, Texas* including an interactive map showing facilities that store Ammonium Nitrate. You can zoom out to the entire country and see data for the 29 states that provided data to Reuters. Ten states did not respond and and eleven others refused to provide the information.**
Though I have not found a legend or explanation, it appears that the darker orange facilities are ones that have at least one school or hospital within a one mile radius.

From the article:
At least 800,000 people in the United States live within a mile of 440 sites that store potentially explosive ammonium nitrate, which investigators say was the source of the explosion in West, according to a Reuters analysis of hazardous-chemical storage data maintained by 29 states
A click on the facility brings you a local view showing the potentially vulnerable population. Below is the West Fertilizer Company with six schools within the mile radius. 
Buddy's Plant in Ballinger, Texas is an example of a plant that has hospitals in addition to schools within the one mile radius.
Some not very meaningful personal observations:
*West, Texas is not in West Texas - a fact that bothers me and probably not many other people.
** The geographic pattern of non responding states and those that refused is kind of curious.

1 comment:

Jack chen said...

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