Investigators continue to review an implosion of a wine storage tank at a Nippon Dynawave factory that killed several employees and raised urgent safety concerns.
LONGVIEW, Wash. — The question plaguing investigators at Japan’s Dynawave paper mill is the same question that plagued Mickey Deering: How could such a large water tank simply implode — and why didn’t anyone see it coming?
Deering worked for three years at the Packaging Company of America plant in the Tri-Cities area of central Washington state, about 250 miles upstream from the site. Tuesday’s deadly incident on the banks of the Columbia River. He performed the exact same kraft paper pulping job that killed several Nippon Dynawave employees, who died from chemical burns after a catastrophic failure of a large white liquor storage tank.
“You’re dealing with hydrochloric acid, you’re dealing with sulfuric acid,” Dearing said. “It’s dangerous. This thing will eat your skin, melt your skin.”
Deering was one of about 200 workers laid off when PCA closed its kraft pulping operations at its Tri-Cities plant in February. But when news of the Longview disaster broke, the accident hit him hard beyond the headlines.
“You work with these people. You know the dangers. It’s unfortunate. I feel for the families,” Dearing said via video call from his home in Kentucky, where he lives.
“You work with these people. You know the dangers. It’s unfortunate. I feel bad for the families.”
Dearing, like several industry experts who spoke to KING 5 but declined to appear on camera, called an implosion of a tank of this size highly unusual and difficult to explain.
“For it to implode, it’s hard for me to understand what happened,” he said. “Because it seemed like there had to be some kind of suction, like something was clogged, causing it to explode inside.”
Dearing speculated that temperature fluctuations within the tank, a stuck vent valve, a blocked flow path or operator error could all be contributing factors. In kraft pulping operations, workers monitor the flow of corrosive chemicals in and out of large storage systems—tracking volume, pressure and temperature in a continuous loop.
“I don’t know if it’s a temperature issue inside the tank. It could be operator error because those guys control a lot of things in these tanks: flow, how many gallons go in, how many gallons go out,” he said.
What bothered Deering the most was the apparent lack of warning. The systems are equipped with monitors and alarms, and the tanks are cleaned and inspected regularly. He questioned how dangerous pressure build-ups or structural failures could go undetected for long periods of time, leading to disaster.
“I don’t understand why there weren’t any warning signs – something was wrong inside the tank,” he said.
Investigators are expected to examine whether the vent or flow valves were stuck, whether the tank had structural defects, or whether maintenance errors caused the implosion. The findings could have significant implications for safety standards at pulp mills in the Pacific Northwest.
The Nippon Dynawave plant in Longview has not issued a public statement on the cause of the accident. State and federal workplace safety investigators have launched an investigation into the incident.
