Bayer CropScience will not resume production of methyl isocyanate at its plant in Institute, W.Va., the company said Friday, ending nearby residents' 25-year war against the company's production of the chemical.

The company had been temporarily blocked from restarting its MIC production unit, and a court hearing was scheduled for today in which a U.S. District Court judge would consider granting a longer-term injunction to 16 residents who sued to stop Bayer from restarting its MIC production at the Bayer plant.

"I am heartened with Bayer's decision and believe that we are safer as a result," said Maya Nye, a leader of the local group People Concerned About MIC and one of the residents who filed the suit.

Company officials said the court-ordered delay was a factor but that their decision was mostly based on the desire not to restart the MIC unit while the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was inspecting the facility. OSHA launched an investigation on March 2, at least partially in response to a recommendation made in January by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board as part of its final report on an August 2008 explosion that killed two Bayer workers. That incident was not in the MIC production unit, but CSB investigators warned that it came dangerously close to a MIC storage tank that could have created a disaster on the scale of one that killed thousands of people in 1984 in Bhopal, India.

Bayer had announced in January that it would stop making, using and storing MIC at the plant by mid-2012 as part of an agreement with U.S. EPA to cease sales of the pesticide Temik over food safety concerns. However, the company had planned to continue making the chemical for another 18 months until the EPA deal took effect (Ken Ward Jr., Charleston [W.Va.] Gazette, March 18). -- AS