An EPA document shows that a new Chevron fuel ingredient has a lifetime cancer risk more than 1 million times higher than what the agency usually finds acceptable — even greater than another Chevron fuel’s sky-high risk disclosed earlier this year.

The EPA decided its scientists were overstating the risks and gave Chevron the go-ahead to make the new boat fuel ingredient at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Poor Mississippi.

  • @PsychedSy
    2•1 year ago

    The chemical stuff is tough. I mean, viscerally, you’ve got smells that at least tell our brain to avoid it sometimes, but mostly the threat isn’t immediate enough to make an impact. Solvents dry out your skin at which helps for some. It’s just hard to make someone think that walking to a tool crib or supply cabinet is worth it over ten seconds of exposure. I’m that way with solvents (IPA and MPK).

    It’s getting better slowly. I get it for some things, though. If you’ve been running a manual mill for 30 years, a little piece of plexiglass isn’t going to make you any safer and we waste effort on dumb shit like that too often. It makes it harder to get people to do some of the other things. Coming into the industry when I did helped. Watching a bunch of guys retire broken or die working has an impact.

    As much as I hate heavy-handed policies, having large areas that are hearing protection required seems to work alright. There’s no question about the sound level of a certain task or any room to argue. I managed to shake hands with my boss, his boss, then our director with a pair of ear plugs for each within a span of about 30m once. They didn’t think it was as funny as I did. The look on their face when they saw what I put in their hand was priceless, though.