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Democrat Corey Palumbo said in a legislative interim meeting Monday that the state Department of Environmental Protection should add methyl isocyanate, or MIC, to a list of chemicals it monitors.
MIC is the chemical responsible for the 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, in which a leak of the chemical at a Union Carbide plant caused the deaths of 3,787 people (the Indian government's official number, though some estimate as many as 25,000 lives were lost)
Bhopal's sister plant is located in Institute, W.V., and is the only site in the U.S. to manufacture and store MIC. Union Carbide owned the Institute plant at the time of Bhopal, but has since sold it to Bayer.
The Kanawha Valley made it through a close call in August 2008 when an explosion at the plant took place only 80 feet from the MIC tanks.
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