The West Fertilizer Company Explosion

You may have heard of the 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Company site in Texas which claimed 15 lives, injured hundreds more, and caused considerable damage.

The explosion has been ruled "a criminal act". You can read about that and watch a video here:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/west-texas-fertilizer-blast-criminal-charges-deepen-mystery-n572341

Yes, the company broke a lot of rules. But were they even aware of most of them?

In a former life, I worked for the state agency which issues air pollution permits in Texas. I direct your attention to the instructions that agency gives companies which construct such facilities and to the "standard permit" which is used to authorize facility air emissions:

*instructions - http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/permitting/air/newsourcereview/ag/drybulkfert_sp.html

*standard permit - http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/assets/public/permitting/air/NewSourceReview/ag/drybulkfert_sp_final.pdf

Do you see anything there which instructs a company how to prevent explosions, or which even hints that explosions might take place? I don't.

I do see some catch-all language reminding the company there might be other requirements and obligations:

This standard permit does not relieve the owner or operator from complying with any other applicable provision of the Texas Health and Safety Code, Texas Water Code, rules of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), or any additional state or federal regulations.

But does that really help?

I agree that companies are ultimately responsible for everything which happens at their facilities, but is it really fair to bring criminal charges against them for not following multiple byzantine rules and regulations which even trained environmental agency employees sometimes find difficult to understand?

Yes, the authorities are going to pin this on someone, some "arsonist" I suppose. Someone has got to be punished when so many people die or are injured and so much property gets destroyed. That's the Texas way.

But we need to ask ourselves an important question - why wasn't there a similar urgency and a similar huge amount of resources devoted to hiring more agency staff to write more comprehensive instructions and permits to help companies avoid such catastrophes? Shouldn't that receive at least as much attention as the current search for a scapegoat?