Hazardous Materials Accident Report

About 9:30 a.m. central daylight time on September 13, 2002, a 24,000-gallon-capacity railroad tank car, DBCX 9804, containing about 6,500 gallons of hazardous waste, catastrophically ruptured at a transfer station at the BASF Corporation chemical facility in Freeport, Texas. The tank car had been steamheated to permit the transfer of the waste to a highway cargo tank for subsequent disposal. The waste was a combination of cyclohexanone oxime, water, and cyclohexanone. As a result of the accident, 28 people received minor injuries, and residents living within 1 mile of the accident site had to shelter in place for 5 1/2 hours. The tank car, highway cargo tank, and transfer station were destroyed. Two storage tanks near the transfer station were damaged; they released about 660 gallons of the hazardous material oleum.