Letter to Seqens (PDF)

Seqens’s response to lawmakers’ first letter (PDF)

Boston (July 6, 2023) – Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Seth Moulton (MA-06) today sent a follow-up letter to Seqens North America calling for answers about the company’s history of safety violations and chemical disasters at other pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in Massachusetts. The lawmakers also demanded answers about Seqens’ response to employees and families impacted by its recent chemical explosion in Newburyport, Massachusetts, which left one dead and four workers sent to a hospital for examination.

In their letter to Sequens Managing Director Huang, the lawmakers wrote, “Today, we are left with more questions than answers and remain deeply concerned about your company’s ability to operate safely in the Commonwealth. Newburyport residents have voiced frustrations with your company’s response to the May 4 explosion, including uncertainty about the adequacy of employment accommodations made for the surviving workers.”

The lawmakers continued, “With your company’s lax—even deadly—safety record across facilities, we must understand why the May 4 explosion happened and how to prevent another from occurring.”

In May, Senators Markey and Warren and Congressman Moulton received a response from Seqens after they demanded answers from the company following the Newburyport chemical explosion.

According to Seqens, two explosions occurred at its polycarbon industry facility in Leominster, Massachusetts within eight years of each other. In 1997, a chemical dryer led to an explosion that blew the roof off its building and resulted in employees being burned, among other serious injuries. Another explosion in 2005 resulted in the Leominister facility’s closing, yet founder and then-CEO Ed Price downplayed the incident, while Leominister residents raised health and safety concerns over possible toxic contamination from the explosion.

In their new letter, the lawmakers call for answers from Seqens by July 12, 2023:

• Please provide any update on the investigation into the cause of the May 4 explosion and the operational status of the Newburyport facility.
• Please describe the history of the corporate ownership and structure of the Leominster and Newburyport facilities from their inception to date.
• Please describe and explain the Dekon manufacturing process referenced in your May 11 letter, including the product hazard analysis conducted on it that OSHA cited among other safety violations in June 2019.
• Does Seqens have any plans to open another chemical manufacturing facility in Massachusetts? If so, where and when?
• Have you been in contact with businesses and public and private property owners around the Newburyport facility to confirm that no properties sustained damage or negative impacts from the May 4 explosion? If damage to other properties or city facilities is found, do you commit to funding all necessary remediation?
• It is our understanding that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is monitoring adjacent soil, water, and air samples for contamination. Should contamination be found, do you commit to funding all necessary remediation and cleanup?
• Have you been in contact with the family of Jack O’Keefe, the employee killed by the May 4 explosion?
• Have you been in contact with the four employees sent to the hospital after the May 4 explosion?
• On June 5, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region office issued Polycarbon Industries, Inc. a Notice of Violation regarding “hazards associated with hazardous chemicals stored in the warehouse area” of your facility at 9 Opportunity Way. The Notice outlined your facility’s “failure to design and maintain a safe facility” and highlighted multiple violations that have the potential to lead to chemical fires or explosions.

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