While chemical plants do not particularly weigh much on the average person’s mind, they simply become part of the landscape as a maze of pipes and smoke stacks that seem impossible to make any sense of.
But in many ways they make our world turn.
Last week’s explosion in Geismar reminds us what kind of work is involved in making our lives easier.
Propylene, or propene, was reported as the culprit for the explosion in Geismar. As an essential ingredient to products of the petrochemical industry, propene sales were valued at nearly $90 billion five years ago. Without some of these chemicals, many of our everyday devices would have never materialized. Obviously, there’s a large risk run with their production.
Safety should be the number-one priority of these large companies that employ hundreds — if not thousands — of people, and no amount of money is worth a life. However, it would be foolish to say that these companies do not stress the importance of safety. In any case, they’re the ones that will have to pay out when insurance companies come knocking.
Not to claim that employee negligence was the cause, but for the most part, safety is only as safe as the employee. Subsequently, there is also the always-existent possibility of equipment failure.
Chemical plants are of a high-risk, high-reward nature where the means are dangerous but economic payout is grand. The state benefits at an indispensable level from these plants.
Some critical of the situation, like self-proclaimed activist Caleb Maupin, have pointed the finger at the state’s disfavor toward unions, purporting that right-to-work states with “hostile anti-union legislation” promote big business and demote safety, predictably finding evidence of neglect by the company executives in order to save a buck. However, this is only natural of southpaw critics who are good at making tragic accidents a thing of political discourse.
Perhaps right-to-work legislation is a conservative take on labor laws, but I would be more than willing to bet that those laborers vote conservative. For conservative legislation to pass, conservative politicians must be voted in. This is good reason to leave out the absence of unions in Louisiana as a means to last week’s ends.
The jobs created by these plants and factories are good jobs, with well above average pay.
Lawsuits and big payouts are soon to come. Attorneys with Becnel Law Firm in LaPlace filed a class-action lawsuit the day after the Geismar explosion, and I’m sure there will be an increase in restriction and regulation, all in an attempt to prevent the if-then situations.
The unfortunate circumstances of the events are grave, and in the cases of the families, devastating. But when it is the human hand that does the job, human error is inescapable. There is a price to pay when we live in one the densest petrochemical corridors in the world.
Chris Ortte is a 22-year-old political science senior from Lafayette.
