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| compost windrow - wikipedia |
Evidence suggests that when the three went into a drainage ditch, that heavier-than-air gas hydrogen sulfide had gathered there from the decaying compost windrows, and sunk to the lowest point in a ditch. Employees went into the ditch for some reason, and were overcome by fumes... see Bakersfield Californian report, which interviews company, colleagues, and regulators. It appears a "Lake Nyos" accident, heavy air pushing out oxygen.
Death from compost would be exceedingly rare, though NIMBY interests generally oppose them as neighbors (due to odors). Allowing organic matter to gradually decompose seems about as passive a waste recycling activity as one could imagine. There are no "witches brews" of unnatural electronics circuit toxics involved... though the regulator quoted notes that a ditch is a "confined space". This is strictly organic recycling danger.
Too early to draw conclusions. But much of what I've focused on in this blog is how people make law and policy from a bad impression... photos trip a "cognitive risk" lobe in our brain, and environmentalists might forget that mob law and sanctimony (sancti-money) are not something we are immune to.
