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wa

5 Dead, Dozens Hurt in Connecticut Power Plant Blast
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Published: February 7, 2010

A power plant under construction in central Connecticut exploded with 
earthquake force that shook homes across much of the state on Sunday as 
workers purged natural gas lines in preparation for the plant to open this 
year. At least five people were killed and more than two dozen were injured 
as a section of the plant collapsed and burned.

Before Blast, Few Safety Problems as Energy Project Rose at Abandoned Mine Site
(February 8, 2010) The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/nyregion/08kleen.html?ref=nyregion

Witnesses said the explosion at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown, 
15 miles south of Hartford, occurred at 11:17 a.m. in a thundering convulsion 
of flames and smoke seen for miles around and felt as far away as cities and 
towns on the shore of Long Island Sound, 30 miles away.

As towering plumes of dark smoke poured into a dazzling blue sky, scores of 
ambulances, fire engines, police cars and helicopters streamed to the scene 
on the west bank of the Connecticut River on the southern outskirts of the 
city, the home of Wesleyan University.

Fire and rescue teams from Middletown, Durham, Portland, Cromwell and 
other towns converged as crews fought the blaze into the afternoon. Aerial 
pictures showed a smoking, sprawling riverside site with buildings housing 
generators, fuel tanks and other power equipment, topped by two smokestacks. 
The explosion apparently occurred in the largest building, called the Power 
Block, which was destroyed.

River Road leading to the site was a tangle of firefighting and rescue 
equipment. Flames were seen shooting from a pipeline after the blast, but 
the line was capped shortly after noon, officials said. Even so, scattered 
fires blazed and smoke billowed over the scene for hours, and search-and-
rescue teams looked through the rubble for victims into the night. The 
search, with dogs, sound-detecting and thermal imaging equipment, could go 
on for days, officials said.

Mayor Sebastian N. Giuliano of Middletown, at a late-afternoon news 
briefing, said that five people were known to be dead, but he did not 
release names pending notification of their families. The son of one victim, 
Raymond Dobratz, 57, of Old Saybrook, a pipe fitter who had been working at 
the plant for a year, said his father had been killed.

Mayor Giuliano said the number of dead and injured remained unclear because 
the number of workers at the plant fluctuated, in part because so many 
subcontractors were involved. He said the workers had been purging gas 
lines all weekend.

He said that as many as 200 construction workers had been at the plant 
daily, though fire officials said only about 50 were on the job at the time 
of the explosion. The mayor said various contractors were being asked to 
identify workers at the site on Sunday. “We need to know who was there 
today,” the mayor said.

And while the cause of the blast remained undetermined, the mayor said that 
a natural gas explosion was “the assumed cause.” He added, “Terrorism has 
been ruled out.”

Mr. Giuliano said that many of the construction workers had been evacuated 
from the site before draining the lines of natural gas, as standard 
procedure, and he said there had been no previous accidents at the plant — 
“not so much as a hangnail,” he said.

The explosion was under investigation by the state and local police and 
by several federal agencies, including the Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 
Firearms and Explosives and the United States Chemical Safety Board, 
which examines chemical industrial accidents. Daniel M. Horowitz, a 
spokesman for the chemical safety board, said that a team of investigators 
would be at the site on Monday.

Fire officials said the explosion occurred as workers for the construction 
company, O & G Industries, were purging the pipelines of natural gas, the 
main source of fuel for the plant, in a procedure known as a blow-down.

Mr. Horowitz said he could not confirm that report, but noted that a gas 
purge last June at a food-processing plant in Garner, N.C., killed four 
people and injured 67 others. He said his agency had issued urgent safety 
recommendations in that case just Thursday related to purging, the clearing 
of air during maintenance or installation of new piping.

Gordon Holk, the Middletown plant’s general manager, said workers from O & G; 
Ducci Electrical Contractors, of Torrington; and Keystone Mechanical 
Electrical Contractors had been at the site on Sunday.

Tests were under way in preparation for a spring or summer opening of the 
620-megawatt plant, which has been under construction since September 2007 
in an old feldspar quarry and was 95 percent finished. The plant, one of 
the largest power facilities to be built in New England in recent years, 
was to supply electricity to Connecticut Light and Power. 

As many as 1,000 workers had been employed in building the plant, but the 
number had declined to 400 or 500 recently, according to Philip Armetta, 
the project’s developer, whose 45 percent interest was placed in a trust 
when he pleaded guilty in 2007 to a charge of failing to disclose knowledge 
of price-fixing in the state’s trash disposal industry.

Representative Matthew Lesser, a freshman Democrat who lives a mile from 
the plant and represents an adjacent district in the State House, said 
the $1 billion plant, which has faced “regulatory hurdles,” had been 
expected to cut the costs of power in a state that has some of the highest 
rates in the nation.

Al Santostefano, the deputy fire marshal in Middletown, said the authorities 
believed that about 50 employees were in the building where the explosion 
occurred, and he spoke of the difficulties of searching for victims in the 
rubble. “It’s a slow dig,” he said. “There’s a possibility someone could 
still be alive under the debris.”

While the number of casualties was uncertain, hospitals in Middletown, 
Hartford and New Haven reported receiving more than two dozen injured 
people.

At Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Peg Arico, a spokeswoman, said 26 
people were brought from the site for treatment. Two victims suffering 
major injuries that could not be treated at Middlesex were transferred to 
trauma centers, one to Hartford Hospital and one to Yale-New Haven, Ms. 
Arico said. Most of the others were treated and released.

“We did not see a lot of burn victims,” she said. “Of the ones that we 
are still treating, many have broken bones and others have abdominal pain. 
The injuries can be described as impact injuries from the explosion.”

Hartford Hospital said two injured people were brought directly from the 
explosion, in addition to one transferred from Middlesex .

The explosion shook the walls and windows of homes 20 to 30 miles from 
the scene and touched off an avalanche of telephone calls as residents 
across a swath of the state contacted relatives and friends to see if 
anyone had been hurt. It also set off a flood of Internet commentaries.

The project contractor, O & G Industries, was described on its Web site 
as a closely held company based in Torrington. Algonquin Gas Transmission 
was listed as the gas supplier, and the plant’s turbines were manufactured 
by Siemens Power Generation. Kleen Energy Systems is owned principally by 
Energy Investors Funds, which recently acquired an 80 percent share.

Mr. Lesser, a member of the Energy and Technology Committee of the State 
House, said he was having a cup of coffee when his building shook.

“There was a loud rumble and my windows in my apartment rattled for 
5 to 10 seconds,” he recalled. “I had no idea what it was. It was peculiar, 
but I didn’t think anything of it.” Then, he said, he began getting phone 
calls and text messages about the explosion.

“The first couple asked, ‘Did you feel that?’ and one person thought 
it was an earthquake,” he said. “And then the subsequent ones reported 
about the explosion itself.”

The tests being conducted at the plant on Sunday were in preparation for 
a spring opening, he said. “The hope was that by increasing generation, 
we could bring electric rates under control.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/nyregion/08explode.html?hp

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