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Butane companies fight accusations of unlicensed operation

GeneralButane companies fight accusations of unlicensed operation
Residents of Belize City were jolted to hear on the evening news on Tuesday that four of the five major City distributors of butane gas, Belize Western Energy Limited (BWEL), Brown’s Butane Gas Service, Gas Tomza Limited (GTL), Philip Neal Depot and Southside Gas Depot (SGD), do not possess a license to operate and handle dangerous goods, which under the Dangerous Goods Act, Chapter 134 of the Laws of Belize, include liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), defined as pressurized butane, propane or a combination of the two.
  
The startling revelations made by Belize City Councilor and Coordinator of Emergency Management for Belize City, Phillip Willoughby, came in the wake of Monday’s tragic death of Brown’s employee Elton Herrera, 25, after a leaking, poorly welded gas tank he was handling exploded in the middle of the morning at his workplace. Today’s Police Department press release on his Wednesday afternoon post-mortem cited his cause of death as “traumatic shock due to multiple injuries due to explosion.”
  
(For further information on Herrera’s death and Councilor Willoughby’s allegations, please see the mid-week issue of Amandala #2364, headline story, “”Cookie” blown away at Brown’s Butane,” and story elsewhere in this issue, “NEMO steps in to shape up butane companies.”)
  
Today, Amandala sought comment from the companies mentioned above concerning these allegations.
  
Brown’s proprietor, Walter “Wally” Brown, and his son, manager Kirk Brown, were both out of office when we called and unavailable until after the holiday weekend, while the manager of the Phillip Neal Depot on Marigold Lane is in Corozal today on business.
  
We had much better luck with BWEL, Gas Tomza, whose general manager, Manuel Martin, agreed to an afternoon interview at his office, and Southside, where general manager Andrew Flowers spoke to us by telephone this afternoon.
  
Before that, BWEL general manager Jose May (pronounced “Mai”) sat down with Amandala for a short interview at his office on Central American Boulevard.
  
Regarding the concerns over the license, May explained that as part of an industry-wide review, the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) met with all butane distributors and importers in Belmopan in 2006. The five major importers of LPG in Belize are BWEL, Belmont of Corozal Town, Gas Tomza of Belize City, Belize Gas of Orange Walk Town and Western Gas of San Ignacio and Santa Elena Towns.
  
As part of the review, the concept of a dangerous goods license was introduced at this time, where the importers and distributors would apply to NEMO, who would authorize the Belize Defence Force (BDF), National Fire Service (NFS) and Department of the Environment (DOE) to conduct inspections and certify all distributors and importers, with NEMO having the final say over who got licenses.
  
NEMO officials also called for new guidelines for the more than 60 depots situated across the country at that time, and set up a medium to long-term plan to relocate the companies out of City limits to an industrial zone – a proposal raised by Councilor Willoughby on Tuesday.
  
The importers, according to May, were asked to submit a list of their distributors to NEMO and some inspections were conducted.
  
The issue lay on the table until sometime in 2007, when two things happened: the Belize Defence Force (BDF) assumed responsibility for approving dangerous goods licenses in conjunction with the NFS and DOE; and Flowers’ Southside Gas Depot was awarded a dangerous goods license to operate on a property next to the Muslim Community Primary School at the corner of the Boulevard and Fabers Road.
  
According to May, the SGD license was approved despite an agreement between the butane companies and NEMO that no new depots would be built within City and town limits, while older depots would be allowed to continue based on their adherence to certain recommendations.
  
From then to now, said May, neither his company nor the other distributors had their applications for the license approved.
  
Flowers passionately defended his company in a telephone interview with Amandala this afternoon. He told us that he went to the NFS, DOE and BDF, in that order, for the dangerous goods license, and the City Council for his trade license (which he said was approved despite opposition from BWEL and Gas Tomza; at one point, the companies even wanted to buy him out, he claimed.)
  
In 2008, when he went to re-apply for his trade license after it expired, the Council demanded that he get his dangerous goods license back first. He duly re-applied, and even consented to move back his main tank at a cost of $10,000 when he was told it might affect the surrounding residents of the community. (He hired a European engineer for the job.)
  
Flowers’ license was then approved by the BDF, and is valid today.
  
He told us that he was “surprised and shocked” to find out that his competitors were operating without a dangerous goods license, but says his digging around suggested that the major companies seemed indifferent to getting the dangerous goods license, preferring to concentrate on the trade license instead.
  
May believes the Governmental organizations are trying to deflect the spotlight from them in the wake of the Brown’s incident, and is now trying to revive the ghost of the 2006 negotiations to make it look like they are doing something. According to him, the importers informed the BDF representative of the changeover and their applications in 2007, to no avail.
  
Both men are adamant that Monday’s tragedy could have been prevented.
  
“Instead of going after the gas companies, why doesn’t (Councilor Willoughby) investigate the welder who welded the tank?” May asked, adding, “this has nothing to do with the gas companies, the Government, or anyone else. It was an isolated case.”
  
May advises that NEMO and those responsible, as they did with air conditioning agents when a certain brand of the coolant Freon was banned some time ago, should educate consumers and welders that the gas companies will not accept re-built cylinders, though he allowed that poorer Belizeans would rather spend the $30 (approximate) to re-build a tank than splurge on $200 – $250 (approximate) to replace it because “that is all they can afford.”
  
While May confirmed that as of today, no Government official has called a meeting with any of the butane importers and distributors to discuss Monday’s tragedy and/or the dangerous goods license, he reported that the importers and distributors’ association had already met on the matter.
  
“We will not encourage our customers to bring tanks like that to BWEL, or anywhere else,” May concluded when we asked about the company’s policy regarding the filling of repaired tanks.
  
Martin was even more candid about Gas Tomza’s policies on repaired tanks. If his deliverymen find and bring a leaking tank from any premises, he said, they are authorized to call the Fire Department and request them to come take a look. If the leak is confirmed, the tank is cut up and destroyed at the Gas Tomza premises at Mile 4 ½ on the Northern Highway and the customer is loaned a tank from their stock for the duration of the inspection, which they can buy afterward.
  
Martin contended: “I truly believe NEMO and those in charge should adopt and enforce this – we see too many of these in circulation, and we need to take them out.”
  
On the matter of licenses, Martin said that while the head office on the highway where orders are taken from both Northside and Southside does not currently have a damaged goods license, he is in the process of closing a license for substations in Corozal and San Ignacio Towns.
  
“Gas Tomza makes safety – for our workers and our consumers – our no. 1 priority. That’s why we are located furthest out of the center of town despite the headache and cost of transporting orders from here to the center of town,” Martin told us, adding that the company only last year upgraded its equipment as per its parent company’s mandate (it is affiliated to a group headed from Mexico, but has Belizean management).

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