The catastrophe at the West plant began with a fire.
In the west, plant life is more sparse on the Nafūsah Plateau, where grasslands lie between the barren hills.
The 1,000-employee 1,000-employeeduces catalogs and telephone directories for customers such as Westiams-Sonoma, Bell Atlantic, and Nynex.
Plants with large quantities are required to tell the Department of Homeland Security how they keep the material secure, but the West plant did not bother to do so.
A spokesman for the F.B.I. in San Antonio said Thursday there had been no indication of criminal activity in the West plant explosion.
The defendants were charged with violating federal air pollution and hazardous waste laws at the Koch Petroleum Group's West Plant refinery near Corpus Christi, Tex., conspiracy and making false statements to state environmental officials, the Justice Department said.
That means a shift from the mindset of the 1930s, when the federal government encouraged people to settle in the West, plant water-intensive crops and make it look like the East Coast.
Kari Hulsey, a G.M. spokeswoman, said that the Pontiac West plant was older and smaller than the New Jersey factory, which was recently equipped with a sophisticated $130 million vehicle painting system.
As the AFL-CIO notes, the West plant hadn't been inspected by OSHA for 28 years.
Last year, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Adair Grain Inc., which owned the West plant, $118,000 for 24 violations in connection with the explosion.
