Les Jones

East Tennessee > Chemical Factory in Newport, Tennessee

Great Salon story about the dangerous chemicals found in Newport in the late '90s. Chemicals including phosgene gas and worse were stored improperly in leaking containers by a slightly mad chemist named Edward Tyczkowski. I vaguely recall the incident from back then, but the story fleshes out the details.

Hawkins was no stranger to toxic substances, but in 20 years of environmental work, he had never seen anything that frightened him as much as Tyczkowski's lab. "Nothing ever came close to this from a purely 'this will hurt you today' standpoint," he says. "I was shocked. I was scared. I was in a state of disbelief at all the things that he had. Some of this stuff was so far off the chart as far as being dangerous. It was just the worst of all nightmares."

(To read the article you'll have to watch a short ad. You'll also have to wade through some nonsensical polemics that take potshots at Bush by somehow tying this to WMDs.) Posted by lesjones