"Board Narrowing Scope of Bayer Mic Investigation"

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Federal investigators are significantly narrowing the scope of their probe of the Bayer CropScience Institute plant as a result of the company's plan to reduce its stockpile of the deadly chemical methyl isocyanate.

U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigators are also dropping parts of their review of the plant because broader issues about MIC use and storage are being examined in a congressionally ordered National Academy of Sciences study.

Board officials had promised a detailed examination of MIC and whether Bayer could eliminate all use and storage of the chemical, which killed thousands of people in a 1984 leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India."

Ken Ward Jr. reports for the Charleston Gazette January 16, 2010.