ethics remain unconsulted
I was browsing LinkedIn again. I was presented a post liked by a co-graduate from my chemical engineering program.
The post was by a pulp and paper industry representative for Pulp & Paper Chronicle, and presented a half-focused phone snapshot from an angled view of a television of eleven former employees of Nippon Dynawave Packaging that were killed in an catastrophe at the company facility.
A 900,000-gallon tank of caustic white liquor imploded. Most were killed where they stood. Two lived long enough to die of it. I don't want to go into further details about their deaths. They were people and not a case study, and the people who loved them do not need it staged for them any more than they needed it euphemized by a press office. It is enough to say it was neither quick nor merciful, and that no one on earth would choose it.
This was the deadliest industrial catastrophe in the history of the state of Washington. The post continued:
"Following the tragic chemical tank implosion that claimed 11 lives, the company's continued wage commitment provides much-needed financial stability for workers and their families while investigations and recovery efforts continue. As the paper and packaging industry watches this situation closely, the priority remains clear: understanding the root cause, implementing corrective actions, and ensuring the facility can only resume operations when it is safe to do so. Our thoughts remain with the families, colleagues, and the entire Longview community affected by this tragedy."
In the framing of the post, this pulp and paper representative is suckling at the ganglia of the corporation, pointing out how caring this company is to pay out the families of the dead through October, in effect providing a severance package for those they killed. Their families will never get to be with their loved ones ever again, never get the benefit of their company, their toil, their presence, but they receive their salary and benefits until October.
The cause of the implosion was not known at the time of the posting, but it remains irrelevant. The Nippon Dynawave produces paperboard products for single serve beverage and food containers. Single serve products, and on the same company line item, single serve people, their purpose limited to the single serve purpose corporations require from us. Families are now forced to live inside the arithmetic. I don't write that to turn the dead into a metaphor- Nippon Dynawave made that choice for everyone.
The disingenuousness masked in this post proves the point- the post is a single serve purpose for the Pulp & Paper Chronicle. They have since posted acquisitions, upgrades, and appointments within the industry with the same level of reverence. But it gets worse.
Washington State Department of Labor and Industries provided the following guideline for the families affected:
"Injured workers can receive partial wage replacement and coverage for medical care related to their recovery, as well as vocational training and other services, if needed. Care for post-traumatic stress disorder is also covered on approved claims.
Once a workplace fatality claim is approved, L&I starts by providing an immediate payment of $7,930 to eligible survivors and reimbursing funeral costs up to $15,860.
From there, surviving spouses receive a monthly pension at 60% of the worker's wages, and an additional 2% of wage is included for each child, up to 5 children.
If there is no surviving spouse, surviving children would receive 35% of the wages, with an additional 15% of wages for additional children, up to 65% of wage. Those benefits would end at 18, or 23 if the child is in school.
If the worker had a dependent who was not a child or spouse, that person would receive a pension of 50% of the average monthly support they were getting prior to the worker's death.
Family members caring for injured workers may qualify for Paid Family Medical Leave."
A claim by someone affected by this disaster must be approved by a system before the lifelong effects can be put to a dollar value of their perceived worth. Worker's Comp is the underlying engine that leaves this foul taste in our mouths. Worker's Compensation was not designed to support the workers. It was designed to legally cap the downside of the employer's risks to the employee. Worker's compensation is a pacifier to shut you up while businesses figure out how to keep making money.
Prior to this incident between 2019 and 2025, L&I cited Nippon Dynawave four times for a total of $3,400. There was an open investigation of the facility during the incident.
When incidents like this occur, the environment is always affected at a greater scale than evinced upon localized testing. "On June 3, the process of flushing water through the dike and ditch system to dilute contamination and safely discharge it from the system was completed. This followed 72 hours of pH testing with no elevated levels, indicating the system was clear of contamination from this incident. An additional 44 samples taken from June 6-22 continued to show no elevated levels." In this case, the sardonic industrial colloquialism "the solution to pollution is dilution" worked, except for all the immediately killed wildlife. Your grandchildren may now safely slurp from the Columbia River.
White liquor has further reactions that can take place and likely were continuing to take place after localized pH testing was completed.
Saponification from the strong alkali base will continue to react with organic matter, killing anything it comes in contact with. When reacting with acidic soil or water, the white liquor will form toxic hydrogen sulfide off gas. The extreme base will dissolve the clay, silica, and minerals in the soil, then upon precipitation the minerals will lock up from use by living organisms and destroy soil porosity. The sulfide ions will continue to strip out oxygen from the water and air, suffocating wildlife. But to maintain an air of credulity, these reactions will eventually stop and dilution will prevail.
There are guidelines within industry to prevent and mitigate these events from the catastrophe they inevitably become. Bhopal taught in blood not to warehouse lethal inventory. Minimize, substitute, moderate, simplify. Lessons will only be learned if we hold the leaders and politicians accountable for not quantifying, minimizing, substituting, moderating, or simplifying the risks they made their employees and substituents take by coming to work every day.
I write this from inside the industry. I chose chemical engineering because it was the shortest path to the greatest income - an engineer's weighting. I'd be lying if I said it was a calling. Along the way, I realized the reality of the risks we take responsibility for: quantification, mitigation, and prevention alongside functionality, for myself and others.
What does responsibility look like? What does oversight look like? What makes modern industrial operations worth the lives they risk every day? Whatever shape needs to be taken does not exist now. Responsibility for the safety of others is endemic; it belongs to all of us. Liability, by design, does not.
If safety came first, none of us would be here.