Eka Chemicals reopens

Production process restarted Tuesday

MOSES LAKE - Elevated oxygen levels led to an explosion in late December at a Moses Lake sodium chlorate production plant.

The explosion took place Dec. 28 in the hydrogen purification system at Eka Chemicals, located at 2701 Road N N.E.

There was a small fire associated with the incident but it self-extinguished. There was also extensive damage to the hydrogen system piping and equipment, and some damage to the enclosure building.

"The response could not have been better in my view," Plant Manager Calvin Greene said. "We had no injuries during the response and our (incident) response system worked well. We immediately notified our industrial neighbors, either by telephone or by our emergency notification system (that) several industries in the Wheeler Corridor industrial area are tied to."

Greene also pointed to prompt response from the Moses Lake Police Department and Moses Lake Fire Department. He said cooperation with the community and plant employees has been commendable.

"We allowed them to see how we were responding, and they were satisfied with our response," Greene said. "We secured the area of course, and secured the areas that were damaged, so that personnel were not in those areas until we could assess and begin our repair process."

There were no injuries and no known environmental damage as a result of the incident.

Production was down for approximately 10 days, Greene said. The company restarted the production process Tuesday, and reached full operation Thursday.

"The monetary loss of that time is not totally defined, and of course we are working with our business and insurance companies to address that," Greene said. "But we were successful in maintaining our customers in full operation, so we did not impact any of our customers to where they could not operate, and we're glad to be in full production again."

The manufacture of sodium chlorate begins in a liquid process that produces a byproduct of hydrogen containing low levels of oxygen. The levels are continuously monitored and additional process shutdown controls have been added to the system to prevent a recurrence.

All other necessary repairs have been completed.

"We have a strong commitment to plant safety, process safety and employee safety," Greene said. "We have always been open with the community concerning those issues."

The company annually publishes a pamphlet as a public document on its activities during the previous year.

"We want our employees and our community to know we're committed to preventing this from occurring again," Greene said. "And also, at the same time, assure the same for our customers who depend on our operations."