In May, the National Academy of Sciences released its findings about use and storage of Methyl Isocyanate at Bayer CropScience.
MIC is a highly toxic and dangerous chemical that was responsible for thousands of deaths in Bhopal, India, in 1984.
Experts held an open meeting in the Institute community to share their results.
The study was done at the request of the federal government, after two workers were killed during an explosion at the Institute plant.
The blast was close to an MIC storage tank. The incident could have had devastating results for the surrounding communities if MIC would have been released into the air.
Elsa Reichmanis, chair of the committee, said their study showed that Bayer did "perform Process Safety assessments." The report went on to say, "However, Bayer and the legacy companies did not perform systematic and complete inherently safer process assessments on the processes for manufacturing MIC or the carbamate pesticides at the Institute side. These assessments did not incorporate in an explicit and structured manner, the principles of minimization, substitution, moderation, and simplification."
Local residents said they appreciated the work that went in to the report, but, believe their real concerns were not addressed.
"My great concern is that it's not going to go anywhere. It's going to be a piece of paper that's funneled through the system. They will look at it and say that they did attempt to help change the problem, but the government does not have any regulations set in place for proper procedures for any chemical plant in this county," said Donna Willis.
Willis said the community is frustrated that the community's health is not the top priority.
"Nobody has cared for the health of the people that lives near these plants or in these vicinities they've only been looking at the profit factor," she said.
Willis plans to share the report with other chemical plants and see if the plants have implemented any findings from 'inherently safer process' assessments.
Bayer didn't have any representatives to answer questions at the meeting. The NAS board was unqualified to answer most of the questions brought up by attendees. Bayer's absence was noticed by people at the meeting.
"What I would say to Bayer is they missed an opportunity to be responsive to the community. They really did," said resident Greggsuzanne McAllister.
The NAS will send its report to the Chemical Safety Board for further review.
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