Recently I reviewed a new chemical plant inspection report authored by Greenpeace. This one is titled “Greenpeace Security Inspection Report: Kuehne Chemical, South Kearny, NJ.” I was looking forward to a clever, and relatively objective, report like the one Greenpeace filed concerning the Du Pont facilities in southwestern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania which I reviewed in my blog article “This Time . . . Kudos to Greenpeace.” But they disappointed me.

All that this eight page Kuehne report amounts to is just a waste of space that rehashes old information known for years by the public. The original “research” done for this “report” is basically non-existent. Greenpeace tries to present original research on pages 5, 6, and 7 of this document, but they squandered the opportunity in this thing they call a report. On those pages appear photos of the Kuehne facility, all taken from public property such as next to the front gate and from a highway bridge spanning the facility. I thought, because they were able to get such public access, that they were going to make a point about security threats, similar to the way they made their points in the report about the Du Pont facilities. Instead, next to photos showing their close approach, they listed captions such as:

“These pictures were taken from the pedestrian walkway on the Pulaski Skyway. There is a fence on the skyway that runs part of the length of the facility and is meant to add security to the facility but, as demonstrated by the photo, when standing on either side of the fence, one has a clear, unobstructed view of the facility. This facility failed inspection because it puts 12 million people at risk including inhabitants of New York City.”

Not only did they just take a lazy short-cut by applying these same three sentences to three of the six pictures taken of the plant from public property, but they didn’t even explain the third sentence ,”This facility failed inspection because it puts 12 million people at risk including inhabitants of New York City.” (Incidentally, this sentence, and direct variations, was lackadaisically applied to all six photos.) Well, why is there a risk? Just because the plant is there? Explain please. Give us your rationale.

But they didn’t explain. They didn’t give a rationale. They simply made another unfounded statement, something at which Greenpeace, sadly, has become all too adept.

What a disappointment.

And, oh yes. On page 5 of this “report” PDF, Greenpeace makes an unreferenced statement that the Kuehne plant had eight chlorine release accidents in the time period of 2000-2010. But on the Greenpeace report summary lead-in page, from which one would download this “report” PDF, Greenpeace says that for the time period 2000-2010 there were ten chlorine release accidents, of course again unreferenced. Well, which is it? Eight or ten? And from where do these variable numbers come, anyway?

Sloppy. So sloppy. Too sloppy.

Although in this blog, I observe strategic and tactical weaknesses of various NGOs and

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