Citizen Engineers at the Fenceline

摘要

On August 22, 1994, the Unocal refinery in Rodeo, California, along the north end of the San Francisco Bay, began to leak a solution of Catacarb through a small hole in a processing unit. While the prevailing winds blew the toxic gas (used by the refinery to separate carbon dioxide from other gases) over the neighboring community of Crockett, Unocal workers were instructed to contain the release by hosing down the unit, but to keep operating. Unaware of the ever-expanding leak, Crockett residents began to experience sore throats, nausea, headaches, dizziness, and other problems, their symptoms worsening over the next two weeks. Unocal finally shut down the unit on September 6, when a neighboring industrial facility, the Wickland Oil Terminal, complained that the refinery's expanding leak was sickening its workers.