ROCKLAND, Maine — A propane tank explosion caused extensive damage Thursday morning to a house on Pleasant Street, the fire department said. There were no injuries.
Assistant Rockland Fire Chief Mikial Mazzeo said the explosion was the result of rags stored in the basement that had finishing solvents on them. The rags heated up, ignited and caused a nearby one-pound propane tank that was stored in the basement to explode.
The homeowner, Augustus Wellman Jr., came home around 10:30 a.m. to find that a corner of his house on Pleasant Street had been blown out. At first the homeowner thought a car had struck the house, Mazzeo said.
Wellman went inside the house and found a fair amount of black smoke. He then called 911. The fire department found a small fire and some smoke in the basement, quickly extinguishing it, Mazzeo said.
The fire official recommended that propane tanks not be stored inside a home.
“The fire official recommended that propane tanks not be stored inside a home.”
You’re not supposed to leave solvent soaked rags around either!
This incident involved about a pint of liquefied propane and it blew the corner of the house out. Yet Rockland’s fire chief is so confident he has a handle on propane he sees no serious reason for concern should DCP Midstream be allowed to build the largest propane storage marine terminal in North America at Searsport.
The chief apparently believes people in Rockland have nothing to fear as LPG tankers carrying 20 million gallons-plus of propane sail right past the Breakwater on their way to servicing the 14-story-tall megatank that would loom over the head of Penobscot Bay. Do the arithmetic and know that these tankers would carry about 160 million times the quantity of propane that blew up on Pleasant Street this morning.
In fact, the chief was so persuasive in expressing his professional confidence this project is no concern of Rockland’s, the council turned around recently and reversed its initial move to join Islesboro and half a dozen other communities in Penobscot Bay in formally requesting greater governmental scrutiny into the potential dangers.
Perhaps those responsible for the safety of the people of Rockland ought to look a little more closely at the Department of Homeland Security’s Waterways Assessment report on this very wrongheaded project that was issued to a restricted audience last November. In addition to detailing the myriad ways foreign and domestic terrorists might very feasibly take out a tanker proceeding between the Monhegan pilot station and Searsport, the report specifically spells out the potential danger to Rockland.
For one thing, Rockland is described in that report as the first community with a significant population that might fall within the blast and thermal radiation zones of a northward-bound LPG tanker that might come under attack. In fact, Rockland is singular among communities in Penobscot Bay in that it is identified as having the highest density population that might be at risk and hence has the potential to sustain the highest number of casualties should something go terribly wrong.
All of this is quite aside from the delays fishermen will have to put up with because of the broad exclusion zones identical with those for similarly hazardous LNG carriers that are mandated for LPG tankers. But that’s of small import in the present day scheme of things. Fishermen are nobodies. The proposed Searsport project, on the other hand, is nothing less and nothing more than an effort by two of the largest fossil fuel corporations in the world — Phillips 66 and Duke Energy — operating through a jointly owned limited liability front (DCP) to dominate the domestic propane market in northern New England and quite possibly expand into the Maritimes.
If the Rockland fire chief and the Rockland city councilors have not read the Homeland Security report they are doing those who put their trust in them a great disservice. Certainly they are in no position to make judgments about the safety of this project.
The transportation, storage and distribution of LPG at the quantities being discussed for Searsport are heavily regulated. Look at the industry track record, lets see when the last significant incident occurred? And right off the Breakwater? Slight exaggeration maybe?
LPG in the hands of the general public is far more a danger than the proposed project. DHS has to make everything look like a potential disaster or they’ll cease to exist.
It’s clear by your use of key phrases your real aversion to the project is anti-large corporate business. I guess being incensed about the fishermen and public safety is merely a convenience.
While it’s true I have no use for accommodating the profiteering of large corporations at the expense of ordinary people, the dangers posed by this project are not inconsequential. There’s no exaggeration to the reality that LPG tankers would pass close enough to Rockland to pose a threat to life and property were one of them to catch fire or explode.
If you were to read the Homeland Security report, as I have, you would realize this agency at least recognizes that danger. It seems your prejudice to to believe that Homeland Security invents dangers to justify its existence. Maybe so. On the other hand, have you ever heard of some actual terrorist incidents that took place back in 2001 — I think it was around Sept. 11 of that year?
Do you feel safer today than you did 9/10/01? Without a doubt there are some good things being done by people and programs that are now under the DHS umbrella, but at what cost and how much safer are we truly?
While we had the FBI and CIA at the time of the Twin Towers, The Homeland Security Act wasn’t implemented ’till 2002. Besides, the terrorists have bigger fish to fry than Rockland, Maine. The tankers might pose a theoretical risk, but their track record is such that a “Halifax, Nova Scotia” is an extremely remote threat.