The nation in brief

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We got outside the evacuation area when they said there was a million pounds. Now it’s 6 million. Maybe we ought to be up in Arkansas somewhere.”

Frank Peetz, 71, a resident of Doyline, La., which was evacuated as roughly 6 million pounds of explosives that were haphazardly stored at an industrial site were moved. Article, this page

Afghanistan commander approved

WASHINGTON - The Senate has approved President Barack Obama’s choice to be the top commander in Afghanistan.

By voice vote Monday, lawmakers cleared the way for Gen. Joseph Dunford, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, to take over as head of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Dunford will replace Gen. John Allen, the current commander, who has been nominated to take charge in Europe.

Allen’s nomination is on hold as he’s ensnared in the sex scandal that had led to the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus.

Dunford takes charge at a critical time for Obama and the military as they decide in the coming weeks the pace of drawing down the 66,000 U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan.

Dunford has directed combat forces in Iraq.

Worker dies in Valero plant accident

MEMPHIS - An oil refinery worker exposed to propane and acid at a Valero plant in Memphis died on Monday, officials said.

Firefighters on Monday morning found two workers injured when a sight glass on a pump unit ruptured, exposing them to a mixture of propane and hydrofluoric acid, said Memphis Fire Department spokesman Wayne Cooke.

The pump was located at the plant’s alkylation unit, Valero Energy Corp. spokesman Bill Day said in a statement.

A sight glass is a transparent tube or window that allows workers to monitor fluid levels within a tank, pipe, pump or boiler.

One of the Valero workers died at the hospital, said Martha Deacon, a spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The other worker, who was a contractor, and two firefighters, who were also exposed to the substance, were taken to a hospital in noncritical condition.

Earlier this year, another worker died from injuries in a fire at the refinery.

N.J. span suspect before derailment

PAULSBORO, N.J. - A New Jersey bridge where a train derailed last week, releasing a hazardous chemical into the air, had a series of rail alignment problems leading up to the derailment, the National Transportation Safety Board’s top official said Monday.

Some of the problems were reported the day before Friday’s derailment.

Safety board Chairman Deborah Hersman said the agency has more work to do before determining the cause of the accident.

One important part of the investigation - a thorough inspection of the bridge and the derailed cars - must wait until crews can remove all the hazardous vinyl chloride from the area.

That work, too, paused Monday when vinyl chloride detection in the air nearby twice reached an unsafe level of more than one part per million. Residents were told at 6 a.m. and again at 6 p.m. to shelter in place, an order that effectively shut down the town and forced a halt to cleanup work at the spill site.

Keep nuke vigil, Obama urges Russia

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama appealed to Russian leaders to maintain joint efforts aimed at ensuring that nuclear material doesn’t fall into the hands of terrorists.

At an event to mark the 20th anniversary of a program set up with the goal of securing and dismantling nuclear weapons and materials left in former Soviet republics, Obama said the threat of unsecured weapons material hasn’t receded.

“Nuclear terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to global security,” the president said in remarks to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction symposium at the National Defense University in Washington. “Let’s work with Russia as an equal partner.”

The program was initiated under a 1992 law sponsored by former Sen. Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat, and Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, who Obama hailed as “two visionaries.”

The law led to the deactivation of 7,610 nuclear warheads and the elimination of all nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, according to Lugar’s website.

Russia in October said it won’t renew its participation in the program, which is scheduled to expire next May. Russia wants to take more control over securing its nuclear arsenal.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 12/04/2012