The families of two men who died in a chemical tank implosion in May at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company facility in Longview have sued the company. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Cowlitz County Circuit Court against Nippon and Weyerhaeuser, the company that originally built the paper mill, alleges that Nippon failed to act on multiple inspections that showed the tank was at risk of failure. The lawsuit was filed by the families of Dillon Miller and Clinton “CJ” Doran, two of the 11 men who died after a tank containing a caustic chemical used in the paper-making process known as “white liquor” imploded on May 26, releasing 900,000 gallons of the scorching liquid into the surrounding mill. They are seeking an amount of money that will be determined at trial. The lawsuit comes after the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board released a report in August. stating that Nippon knew that the “G Tank” was “unfit for continued service,” but continued to use the tank. Ten months before the implosion, an inspector hired by Nippon found that the tank was becoming dangerously thin and that there was a “high probability/consequences of failure,” investigators wrote. The tank was inspected three times in the ten months before it imploded and each time inspectors expressed concern about the thinning of the tank walls, the investigation found. Nippon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Our thoughts remain with the families who lost loved ones and everyone affected by the incident,” Weyerhaeuser spokeswoman Nancy Thompson said in a statement. “Although Weyerhaeuser previously owned the Longview pulp and paper facility, we do not own or manage the facility since it was sold to Nippon more than 10 years ago.” According to the families’ lawsuit, a separate tank, into which Tank G was emptied, was removed from service for repairs the morning of the implosion. Tank G continued to fill, with nothing to empty into, causing it to almost reach its 1.2 million gallon capacity around 6:30 am. Workers began arriving for their shift around 7 a.m., the lawsuit alleges, and gathered near the tank in the mechanical and electrical maintenance shops for morning meetings. Seventeen workers were on the ground level when the tank imploded at 7:09 a.m., according to the lawsuit. Two workers died in a mechanical maintenance shop, eight in an electrical maintenance shop and one in a yard near the tank. The lawsuit does not identify where Miller and Doran were at the time of the implosion. Doran’s widow, Alisa Bondar, told KGW, which first reported on the lawsuit, that they had married a year earlier and planned to visit family abroad together. Bondar, who emigrated from Ukraine, said her family never met her husband. Bondar and Doran wanted a “simple life,” he told KGW. “That’s why I was working so hard.”
