“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” — Samuel Johnson
Last year, the administration announced its intention to shutter the Chemical Safety Board. The chemical process industries rallied around this life-saving agency, and to our relief, funding was restored, almost, in January when Congress passed several appropriations bills and the president signed off.
The CSB got a reprieve from the chopping block for one more year. In the meantime, they remained busy generating the kind of information that makes all more aware of real-life chemical hazards, and providing the kind of guidance that lets us all make our facilities safer.
One such source of information has been the CSB series, Incident Reports. The CSB recently issued Volume 4.
Volumes 1 through 4
The CSB issued Volume 1 on January 14, 2025. It contained 26 incident reports, drawn from facilities in 15 states. Facilities in Louisiana and Texas accounted for 13 of the incidents.
The CSB issued Volume 2 on March 12, 2025. It contained 25 incident reports, drawn from facilities in 14 states. Eight of those states were not in Volume 1, so Volume 2 brought the total number of states contributing incidents to 23. Facilities in Louisiana and Texas accounted for 12 of the incidents.
The CSB issued Volume 3 on July 22, 2025. It contained 30 incident reports, drawn from facilities in 15 states. Six of those states were not in either Volume 1 or Volume 2, so Volume 3 brought the total number of states contributing incidents to 29. Facilities in Louisiana and Texas accounted for 11 of the incidents, and Illinois and Oklahoma accounted for 3 incidents each.
The CSB issued Volume 4 on February 18, 2026. It contained 13 incident reports, drawn from facilities in 7 states. Two of those states were not in any of the first three volumes, so Volume 4 brought the total number of states contributing incidents to 31. Louisiana, with five incidents, was the only state included in Volume 4 that had more than one or two incidents listed.
The Industries
As has been the case in previous volumes, the CSB made a point of including incident reports from across the chemical process industries. Here is how the 13 incidents were distributed:
- 5 incidents (38%) in specialty chemicals plants
- 4 incidents (31%) in refineries
- 2 incidents (15%) in metals production facilities
- 1 incident (8%) in a chemical manufacturing complex
- 1 incident (8%) in a distribution tank farm
Counting the incidents from all four volumes, this is how the 94 incidents were distributed:
- 30 incidents (32%) in refineries
- 19 incidents (20%) in specialty chemicals plants
- 15 incidents (16%) in chemical manufacturing complexes
- 9 incidents (10%) in food processing facilities
- 6 incidents (6%) in pulp and paper mills
- 5 incidents (5%) at crude oil production sites
There was also one incident each at a munitions plant and at a specialty construction contractor, and two incidents each at gas pipelines, waste processing facilities, distribution tank farms, and metal production mills.
Still, we’re all probably more interested in the types of incidents that occurred than we are in the types of facilities where they occurred.
Types of Incidents
The primary concerns of process safety are to prevent fires, explosions, and hazardous releases. Volume 4, even with just 13 incidents, included all three types:
- 7 incidents (54%) resulting in fires
- 5 incidents (38%) resulting in exposure to hazardous materials
- 1 incident (8%) resulting in an explosion
Again, after compiling the incidents from all four volumes, we see that this is how the 94 incidents were distributed across the three primary types of process safety hazards:
- 36 incidents (38%) resulting in fires
- 26 incidents (28%) resulting in exposure to hazardous materials
- 20 incidents (21%) resulting in an explosion
There were also 11 incidents which did not fall quite so neatly into one of the three types. There were 6 thermal exposures (which could perhaps be grouped with exposure to hazardous materials) and 5 uncontrolled reactions.
There Is Still Much to Learn
The budget for the CSB in FY2026 is $14 million, down $400,000 from FY2024 and FY2025. Compare that to the $220 million that the DHS spent on a single ad campaign. The CSB spends that $14 million on investigations and education, so we in the chemical process industries can learn and make our facilities safer. And as these incident reports show, there is still so much more to learn.
We should all make sure that the CSB’s efforts are not in vain. Let’s all take advantage of their efforts and take a few minutes to read these incident reports and see what we can learn from the experience of others.
