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Operations & FootprintRegulatory & Legal 15 Sep 2026

US safety board says Nippon Dynawave knew Longview tank was unfit before fatal rupture

The US Chemical Safety Board has reported that Nippon Dynawave Packaging kept using a white liquor tank at its Longview, Washington mill although it knew the tank was, in the board's words, "not fit for continued service". The tank, holding more than 500,000 gallons (1.9 million litres), failed in May, killing 11 workers and injuring eight including a firefighter. Washington's Department of Ecology has since filed a violation notice listing 35 citations, and a wrongful-death lawsuit has been filed against the company, which says the full investigative process should establish the record before conclusions are reached.

Why this mattersThe Chemical Safety Board's finding that a tank known to be unfit stayed in service will drive integrity and inspection requirements for liquor storage across North American kraft mills.

  • The US Chemical Safety Board reported that the company used the tank although it knew it was "not fit for continued service" (quotation).
  • Washington's Department of Ecology filed a post-accident violation notice listing 35 citations.
  • A tank holding more than 500,000 gallons (1.9 million litres) of white liquor failed at the Longview mill in May, killing 11 workers and injuring eight, including a firefighter.
  • Before the accident the Department of Ecology had issued 54 environmental violation notices since 2016 and fined the company USD 41,500 for eight serious violations.
  • The Department of Labor and Industries investigated more than a dozen safety complaints at the plant since 2018, issued almost USD 7,000 in fines and has opened two further investigations.
  • More than USD 2.4m in workers' compensation claims have been paid for 169 employees injured at the plant since 2015; a wrongful-death lawsuit has been filed against Nippon Dynawave.
Nippon Paper Industries
Sources fluxdaily.news globalpapermoney.com rtwnews.com quanta.report rtwnews.com
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Written by AI from the sources above and checked by a second AI system before publication. No human wrote or edited this story. How it is made.

Updates

  • 2026-09-22 · Edited before publication: Grounded and correctly attributed to the Nippon Paper Group plant, but one bullet said all eight recovered casualties had burns or inhalation injuries; the source says many did. Corrected key facts supplied; date of 15 September follows from 'Tuesday morning' in a 21 September report.
  • 2026-09-23 · Update: Government records reviewed by the Associated Press show Washington regulators fined the Longview mill repeatedly since 2016 for safety and environmental violations before the fatal tank collapse.
  • 2026-09-26 · Update: Search and decontamination operations at the Longview tank-collapse site continued through the week, with authorities confirming no major contamination of the Columbia River.
  • 2026-09-27 · Update: Nippon Paper says the death toll from the Longview white-liquor tank rupture has been revised to one confirmed fatality with nine workers still missing, as crews work to stabilise the damaged vessel before recovery efforts can resume.
  • 2026-09-28 · Edited before publication: Several ungrounded or contradictory facts: the story gives both a 500,000-gallon and an approximately 900,000-gallon (3.4 million litre) tank, the latter appearing nowhere in the sources; the 1,000-employee headcount, the tissue/cups/plates/cartons product list and the USD 3,400 fine for three violations since 2021 are not in the excerpts; injured counts of eight and nin
  • 2026-09-28 · Edited before publication: The published version led in the present tense on the fatal rupture, which the records source dates to May; the new development in the excerpts is the Chemical Safety Board report and the Department of Ecology's 35-citation notice. Headline, summary and fact order reframed accordingly. The 'two unaccounted for' claim is dropped: the sources conflict on the timing of the