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Chemical Spills Put Italy's Underground Physics Lab in Jeopardy

posted by mrpg on Friday October 12 2018, @05:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the peligro dept.

"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Chemical spills put Italy's underground physics lab in jeopardy

Scientists fear for the future of Gran Sasso National Laboratory, a world-leading underground physics lab in central Italy, after prosecutors charged four lab leaders with endangering drinking water supplies. Sparked by a number of accidental spills that released small amounts of toxic chemicals into groundwater feeding a local aqueduct, the 28 September legal action could lead to at least two major Gran Sasso experiments being shut down.

Gianpaolo Bellini, a particle physicist at the University of Milan in Italy and a former spokesperson for Borexino, one of the lab experiments in jeopardy, says fears of contamination are “groundless.” But he says the lab itself is in a “very delicate situation.” He worries that research groups, particularly from abroad, might be put off by the possibility of legal action and delays to their work. “This [investigation] damages the reputation of the lab,” he says. “People will be more cautious about coming and therefore more cautious about investing their money.”

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 12 2018, @07:48AM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 12 2018, @07:48AM (#747812) Journal

    highly toxic substances

    Not pleasant, yes, but let's put the things in perspective...
    [Citation needed] for the "highly toxic".

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    Tensions came to a head in 2002 when researchers working on Borexino, ..., accidentally released some 50 liters of the hydrocarbon pseudocumene [wikipedia.org], which ended up in a local river

    Pseudocumene entry in NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards [cdc.gov]:

    OSHA PEL limit: none
    Symptoms: irritation eyes, skin, nose, throat, respiratory system; bronchitis; hypochromic anemia; headache, drowsiness, lassitude (weakness, exhaustion), dizziness, nausea, incoordination; vomiting, confusion; chemical pneumonitis (aspiration liquid)

    Sorta like... I don't know... gasoline?

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    The new investigation was triggered after researchers working on the CUPID neutrino experiment in August 2016 accidentally released a dichloromethane solvent [wikipedia.org], used to clean their detector’s crystals. Small amounts of the solvent somehow ended up in Teramo’s drinking water.

    Umm... like painstriper, no?

    It is widely used as a paint stripper and a degreaser.[14] In the food industry, it has been used to decaffeinate coffee and tea as well as to prepare extracts of hops and other flavorings.[15] Its volatility has led to its use as an aerosol spray propellant and as a blowing agent for polyurethane foams.

    Heh, used in food industry?

    ----

    and a minor spill of chloroform in November 2016.

    Right!

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @09:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @09:41AM (#747836)

    and a minor spill of chloroform in November 2016.

    The Bill Cosby experiment.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 12 2018, @05:48PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday October 12 2018, @05:48PM (#747980) Journal

    [Citation needed] for the "highly toxic".

    The NIOSH pocket guide tells first responders what to do, but not really why to do it (and they mostly assume you're not going to be drinking it). For toxicity information you want to look at the MSDS.

    Here's one. [t3db.ca]

    It lists the LD50 (lethal dose for 50% of the test animals) at 5 gm/kg for rats.

    So that would make it slightly or moderately toxic depending on which scale you use. [ccohs.ca] The probable lethal dose for a person would be about a pint of the stuff.

    So it's not great but not as bad as claimed. But, they're storing 1300 tons of the stuff. A bad spill would be bad.

    I think what's really driving this is the fact they they never implemented their corrective actions from the first spill. So you spill something, ok not great, but you need to clean it up and make sure it doesn't happen again. So then you have a second spill. And then on your third spill it turns out you never corrected the issues from the first one.

    Regulators don't look too kindly on that sort of thing as well they shouldn't. That's getting close to 'willfullness' which is when shit gets real.