Just as those residents were cleared to return home on Tuesday morning, a 900,000-gallon tank containing a mixture of sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfide, and disodium carbonate, known as “white liquor,” imploded at a paper mill in Longview, Washington. It was one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the U.S. in years, and came not long after safety complaints were filed against Nippon Dynawave in March and May. The state’s labor and industries department said on X that they were about “various violations that weren’t related to chemical process or storage safety.”
The two incidents follow several other chemical plant disasters in the last year, including last month, when two workers died and another was critically injured after a chemical release at a plant in West Virginia.
According to the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters—a group of environmental justice, labor, public health, national security, and environmental organizations—at least 215 dangerous chemical incidents occurred in 2025, including fires, explosions, and toxic releases. It says there have been at least 1,446 hazardous chemical incidents in the U.S. since 2021, an average of 5 incidents per week.
