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TexasTowelie

(111,282 posts)
Sat Apr 19, 2014, 08:09 PM Apr 2014

Year after the blast, West ponders new plant

WEST — Leaders in a Central Texas town that was devastated last year by a deadly fertilizer plant explosion are contemplating building a new facility, calling it a crucial step toward West’s economic recovery.

The idea rankles some residents, who say the continued lack of state and local regulations would put them at risk of another disaster. Fifteen people died last April when a fire inside the West Fertilizer Co. ignited 34 tons of ammonium nitrate and caused an explosion that leveled homes and schools.

“It’s disheartening for the families to know that these guys went into that fire without knowing what they were walking into,” said Melinda Hagar, whose older brother, Morris Bridges, a volunteer firefighter, died in the blast. “What’s to say it will be any different the next time?”

But others in West, residents and officials alike, see a new plant as a necessary risk for a town that’s surrounded by fields of corn, maize and cattle and whose economic lifeblood is agriculture.

More at http://www.theeagle.com/news/texas/year-after-the-blast-west-ponders-new-plant/article_96c20f7c-c782-11e3-af6a-0019bb2963f4.html .

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