OSHA fines over one-million dollars have become more common. But here’s one with a twist: It’s not for workplace hazards — it’s for recordkeeping violations.

OSHA has issued Goodman Manufacturing Co. 83 willful citations for failing to record and improperly recording work-related injuries and illnesses at the company’s Houston air conditioning cooling facility.

The proposed fines total $1.215 million.

OSHA received a complaint that Goodman wasn’t properly recording injuries.

An investigation showed the company had either not recorded or failed to properly record the nature and/or duration of 72% of employee injuries and illnesses from January 2008 to March 15, 2010.

OSHA categorized the recordkeeping citations as willful because the company was extremely knowledgeable about OSHA’s requirements but made many unsupportable decisions.

The company has 15 business days from receipt of the citations to decide whether to contest the citations.

OSHA has implemented a National Emphasis Program (NEP) on Recordkeeping to assess the accuracy of injuries and illnesses recorded by employers. You can find out more about the NEP here (PDF).

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has completed its investigation into the Oct. 2, 2007, explosion at Xcel Energy’s Cabin Creek plant in Georgetown, CO, that killed five workers and injured three others.

The CSB identified 3 major causes of the incident:

1. a lack of planning and training for hazardous work by Xcel and its contractor, RPI Coating
2. Xcel’s selection of RPI despite its having the lowest possible safety rating (zero) among competing contractors, and
3. allowing volatile flammable liquids to be introduced into a permit-required confined space without necessary special precautions.

Painting contractors from RPI were recoating a 1,530-foot portion of a water tunnel when a flash fire suddenly erupted. Vapor from a flammable solvent ignited, most likely from a spark near the spraying machine. The solvent was used to clean spray-painting equipment.

The fire quickly spread as more solvent ignited. There were 10 workers in the tunnel at the time. Five were unable to get to the only available exit. Five workers made it out safely, although three were injured.

The closest confined space rescue unit was about 75 minutes away. The trapped workers died about an hour before the response unit arrived.

The CSB claims Xcel and RPI impeded the investigation. The agency had to seek assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver. Xcel went to federal court seeking to block release of the CSB report. The court sided with CSB in favor of the report’s release.

OSHA’s confined space regulation doesn’t prohibit entry or work in confined spaces where the concentration of flammable vapor exceeds 10% of the chemical’s lower explosive limit (LEL).

The CSB recommends OSHA establish a fixed maximum percentage of the LEL for entry so that work in potentially flammable atmospheres would be prohibited.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has agreed to look into the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, it has told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that it will have to end some investigations early and delay others as a result.

Among the investigations that will close early:

• the explosion at the Kleen Energy power plant that killed six people in Middletown, CT, in February, and
• the explosion at the ConAgra Slim Jim facility that killed four people in Garner, NC, in June 2009.

The CSB will delay its investigation of the failure of a 10-inch pipe in a reactor at Silver Eagle Refining in Woods Cross, Utah. The explosion and its blast wave damaged more than 100 homes.

There are about 200 serious workplace chemical incidents each year in the U.S. The CSB usually investigates 12 to 15 of them with a staff of 40 and a $10.6 million budget.

By comparison, the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane, train and subway incidents, has 400 employees and an $80 million budget.

The CSB has asked for $2 million to hire more investigators and open a new Houston office.

It has no authority to issue citations or create new regulations, but chemical industry officials say the CSB has been instrumental in uncovering hazards that put workers and communities at risk.

An explosion that killed two welders was caused by flammable fumes inside an aboveground storage tank.

On July 23, an explosion at a natural gas well near Pittsburgh, PA, owned by Huntley & Huntley, killed two workers who were hired to repair pinhole leaks in the oil tank. The two welders worked for Northeast Energy Management of Indiana, PA.

The 8,400 gallon-capacity tank had only about 200 gallons of oil in it at the time.

The Allegheny County Fire Marshal says on the day of the explosion, temperatures were in the 90s with a heat index near 100. The metal tank heated up, causing oil vapor to fill it. The welders were killed when a spark ignited that vapor, causing the five-ton tank to rocket above 100-foot-tall trees and land about 220 feet away.

OSHA is also investigating the explosion.

Huntley & Huntley has no previous OSHA violations. Northeast Energy Management paid $5,965 to settle seven violations after a September 2007 explosion and fire at another well in Pennsylvania. OSHA said workers at that well “were exposed to an unsafe air mixture environment resulting in an explosion and fire causing injuries.”

OSHA’s web page on welding hazards is here.

A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) final report on the June 22, 2009, Metro train crash says it was due to chronic track circuit failures and a negligent attitude toward safety. The crash killed a driver and eight passengers and injured scores of others.

NTSB members said safety wasn’t made a priority by the senior management or board of directors of the public transit agency. Metro’s chairman hadn’t included safety oversight in the board’s mission statement.

NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman noted that Metro hadn’t implemented many previous NTSB recommendations. “They are not hearing it, they are not getting it and they are not addressing the problems,” Hersman said. “Our frustration is that if they don’t listen this time, I am not sure what can be done.”

Metro’s interim General Manager Richard Sarles said he’d “carefully consider” the NTSB recommendations. Sarles stopped short of saying Metro would implement the recommendations in the final report.

When an investigation into workplace deaths shows a lack of attention to safety at the top of an organization, how should top managers be held accountable? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

The boat, with 35 passengers and two crew, stalled in the Delaware River after the vehicle caught fire.

As the boat was sitting in the river, waiting for help, it was struck by a barge being pushed by a tug boat. Two passengers drowned in the Delaware River.

Accounts from passengers say they had less than a minute to get life jackets on children. However, local media report that the duck boat was sitting powerless for 15 minutes before the collision occurred.

A Pennsylvania regulation requires children 12 and younger to wear life jackets on recreational vehicles. That rule doesn’t apply to the Ride the Duck tours.

For commercial vehicles, such as the duck boats, children don’t have to wear the life jackets. The company just has to have enough life vests on board for everyone.

Chris Edmonton, director of boating safety at the Boat US Foundation, said he assumed the duck boat captain would have asked the passengers to don their jackets once the vessel lost power.

“That’s what I would have done, but he is not legally required to have them do it,” Edmonton told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Questions remain about how much time the two crew members had to react once the duck’s engine failed.

So, how can you use this story in safety training?

The investigation into this case will surely look into how the two duck tour employees reacted when the engine unexpectedly failed.

Safety training for normal operating conditions is one thing. But how would your employees react to something unexpected?

Have you ever given workers a safety scenario during training and asked them how they’d handle it? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Eleven people were injured at a July 4th fireworks display in Palmyra, PA, and now OSHA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating.

One 17-year-old needed skin grafts for burns on the back of his legs. Eight of the 10 others injured were treated and released at a local hospital. Two others were held overnight for observation. The injured suffered burns, cuts and bruises.

State police say when one of the fireworks didn’t ignite properly, it exploded inside a discharge tube. That caused surrounding discharge tubes to fail. The fireworks inside the tubes exploded, sending burning material into the crowd.

OSHA will investigate whether the company that put on the display, Schaefer Pyrotechnics of Ronks, PA, followed all required safety procedures.

Schaefer was fined $8,100 by OSHA for a July 4, 2004, fireworks mishap in Pittston, PA. About two dozen people were injured.

In 2007, during a fireworks show put on by Schaefer in Vienna, VA, a rogue mortar launched and injured 11 people. No OSHA violations were issued in that incident.

In both of those incidents, faulty fireworks were blamed. The company uses fireworks manufactured in China. It says it tests them regularly and visits the factory where they’re made in China.

Kimmel Schaefer Jr., owner of the company, said in the week around July 4, it launched 1,800 fireworks and only one malfunctioned. He said the company uses a 240-foot safety zone around the launch site, 30 feet more than required.

Yes, it involves tough investigative work, but a clear pattern seems to be emerging.

Consider these recent stories:

• A Quakertown, PA, woman was arrested for fraud after an investigation found her working as a stripper at a club in neighboring Easton, PA.
• A Lindenhurst, NY, man was nabbed for working as a disc jockey in a Utica, NY, club called “Peepers.” Investigators said he’d been working there for five years, in fact, and getting comp all the while.
• An Islip, NY, man has been charged with fraud after he was found working as a bouncer at an all-nude club in West Babylon, NY.

We’re not sure exactly what’s going on here. But we suggest you keep your eyes open.

Lira, 60, an employee of Santa Cruz County, CA, was recently pulled into a wood chipper and died at the scene. An ambulance was canceled before it arrived.

But a quarter century ago, when he was working for the county, an incident claimed one of Lira’s arms and badly mangled the other.

Lira grabbed jumper cables out of the cab of a crane when its extension touched a nearby power line, badly shocking and burning him.

Because of severe burns, doctors thought they would have to amputate both of his arms, but they saved one with help from a transplanted toe.

Throughout his recovery, his goal was to get back to work. Lira had worked for the county since 1969.

That same job claimed his life on June 7.

The California Department of Industrial Relations is investigating.

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, wrote a letter to the CSB asking it to investigate the Gulf disaster.

The CSB’s resources had already been stretched thin with other disaster investigations such as major explosions at the Kleen Energy power plant in Middletown, CT, and the ConAgra Slim Jim facility in Garner, NC.

But, noting that the BP oil leak is “one of the most significant chemical accidents of the current era,” the CSB has decided to investigate the Gulf disaster.

The process will include the key investigators who were involved in the CSB’s 2005-2007 report on the BP Texas City explosion.

The CSB says it will examine key technical factors, the safety cultures involved, and the effectiveness of relevant laws, regulations and industry standards.

Three years ago, the CSB’s final report on the BP Texas City blast found:

• organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of BP Corporation
• cost-cutting that had affected safety programs and critical maintenance
• production pressures that resulted in costly mistakes made by workers likely fatigued by working long hours, and
• lack of sufficient action on problems that were brought to the attention of BP’s board of directors.

You can read a statement from the CSB on its upcoming investigation here (PDF).

Separate interviews with former BP employees back up the findings of the internal investigations.

Included in ProPublica’s report:

• BP’s internal 2001 report warned that the company faced a “fundamental culture of mistrust” by its workers, in part because senior management lacked a structure of accountability.
• The 2004 internal investigation stated, “Pressure on contractor management to hit performance metrics (e.g. fewer OSHA recordables) creates an environment where fear of retaliation and intimidation did occur.”
• Once again in 2007, a report echoed BP’s previous internal investigations, finding, BP pressured its contractors and employees to save money. “Many of the people interviewed indicate that they felt pressured for production ahead of safety and quality,” the report said.

The BP situation has caught the attention of OSHA head David Michaels, and he ties it to one of his predominant current themes about injury logs.

At the recent American Industrial Hygiene Conference in Denver, Michaels said he was struck by the fact that top executives at BP were on the offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico handing out certificates and awards to people for having worked seven years without a recordable injury, the very night before the rig blew up.

Michaels called for reforms that stop measuring safety performance by injuries or lack thereof, and instead start measuring risk of significant events occurring.

ProPublica’s article is here.

How do you encourage employees to let management know about hazards? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

NDK Crystals has 15 business days to decide whether to contest the fines.

The explosion at the company’s crystal manufacturing facility took the life of a truck driver parked at a nearby service station.

OSHA says NDK knowingly operated high pressure vessels even after being warned of the potential for catastrophic failure due to fabrication defects.

NDK received seven willful OSHA violations, one for each of the seven high pressure vessels in operation.

OSHA also issued five serious violations for failing to:

• evaluate the building for a catastrophic event
• have an emergency evacuation program
• implement a hazard communication program
• provide PPE, and
• provide training certification.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is also investigating the explosion to find its root causes.

Great Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) says workers who eat lunch at their desks are creating health hazards for themselves.

That’s because the food crumbs that fall into the keyboards lure mice.

At night, the mice scrounge for food and dig into the crumbs in keyboards.

Problem is, the mice have no problem pooping where they eat, so to speak.

The RSC says workers can get sick simply by typing on a pooped-on keyboard and then picking up a sandwich with their unwashed hands. The potential stomach illness has been dubbed “qwerty tummy” after the first six letters on a keyboard.

One London cleaning company told the RSC that a woman couldn’t understand why seeds kept popping out of her keyboard when she typed. An investigation showed them to be mouse droppings.

Scientists found traces of E. coli after swabbing keyboards in their London offices.

One keyboard was so dirty that a microbiologist ordered it removed, quarantined and cleaned.

The RSC really wants to spread the word about keeping desks clean at work. And what better way to do that than with a contest?

The scientists will give £300 (about $439) to the sender of the most awful image of a workplace keyboard.

What’s the worst office keyboard you’ve seen? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

OSHA is investigating the death of a worker in Milford, CT, who was power-washing a home.

Victor Larranaga-Marquez was pronounced dead at the scene. Larranaga-Marquez and his uncle, Gerrardo Marquez-Hernandez, were power-washing a house when their aluminum ladder came into contact with the service line from the utility pole to the house, carrying 200 amps of electricity.

Marquez-Hernandez was taken to a hospital for serious, but not life-threatening burns.

The homeowner refused to identify the company he hired to a local newspaper.

A neighbor said, from what he was told, the workers didn’t lower the ladders they were using, but just leaned them back, and they came in contact with the electrical wires.

Authorities say 61-year-old Wilbur Farris was part of a three-person team working on a vacuum rolling grinder at U.S. Lime & Minerals, Inc., in Marble City, AR.

Workers were in the process of locking out the machine when it suddenly turned on. The vacuum sucked Farris into the machine.

It took rescuers two-and-a-half hours to pull apart the machine and recover Farris’ body.

The investigation will focus on whether the machine malfunctioned or if protocol wasn’t followed.

A city of Jeffersonville, IN, employee had taken two prescription pain medications just seven hours before the garbage packer he was driving was involved in a five-vehicle crash that killed a teenager.

Roger Crum Jr. was taking Lortab and Flexeril for lower back pain. At first he told investigators he took the meds only at night.

But later Crum admitted he took the pills between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. on the morning of the crash. The pile-up happened at 11:30 a.m.

When Crum’s vehicle struck a small car, it killed its driver, 19-year-old Bethany Burrier. Three others were hospitalized. Crum was treated at the scene for minor injuries.

A city report notes the FDA says Lortab can cause light-headedness, dizziness and sedation and can impair thinking and physical abilities for driving. Flexeril also comes with a warning about driving.

Jeffersonville officials were apparently unaware that Crum took the drugs. The city has a policy that requires its drivers to report taking prescribed medications to their supervisors.

What’s your company’s policy on prescription meds and workers in safety-sensitive jobs? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

An unidentified man was drawn into a sausage-making machine in Danvers, MA. Somehow, even though his head and shoulders were pulled in, he escaped injury.

The man was part of a cleaning crew at DiLuigi Sausage Co. He was cleaning inside a vacuum-type cylinder that draws marinade into the meat, according to police.

The machine was activated while the man was still cleaning inside it. He was taken to a hospital, but showed no signs of serious injuries.

OSHA is investigating.

A worker was killed when a 4,500 pound steel safe fell off a dolly and crushed him at a Chase Bank branch in Key-Caryl Ranch, CO. The safe measured six feet by four feet.

The employee of Security and Safe of Colorado, 41-year-old Donald Lindsey, was helping to move the safe into a room when it tipped and pinned him against a door.

Authorities say Lindsey didn’t die right away, but rescuers couldn’t reach him quickly because the safe blocked the door.

Others were also trapped inside the room.

Firefighters had to cut through a wall to get to the victim, but by the time they reached him, he had died.

Crews had to cut through another wall to get to the others trapped in the room.

OSHA is investigating.

Lenny Guida, president of Denver’s Master Security Center, says, “If a safe starts going, we tell everyone, ‘You never try to stop it. You just get out of the way. You don’t try to catch it.’”

Twenty-nine miners died in the explosion.

The Charleston Gazette reports that the investigation is looking into whether any criminal violations of mandatory health and safety standards were committed in connection with the explosion at the Massey Energy mine.

Violating safety and health standards could lead to misdemeanor criminal charges. Faking required mine safety records or other safety documents required by MSHA is a felony.

Mining disasters with multiple deaths in 1989, 1991 and 1992 led to criminal charges against mine operators and company officials. The four most recent coal mining disasters — those with five or more deaths in one incident — didn’t lead to criminal charges.

An investigation into the January 2006 fire that killed two miners resulted in Massey Energy’s Aracoma Coal subsidiary pleading guilty to 10 criminal violations and paying a $2.5 million criminal fine, as well as admitting that one of the violations resulted in the deaths of the two miners.

Do you think Massey should face criminal charges in this case? You can enter your comments in the box below.

Daly City, CA, police say Moustafa Algazawy was changing a light bulb above some storage lockers when he fell.

He stood on top of a metal cage that stores propane tanks to change the bulb.

He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

An autopsy will determine whether Algazawy died from electrocution or the fall.

A manager who saw the employee fall suffered a heart attack. Cal-OSHA says the manager had a “severe grief reaction” after witnessing the worker’s death.

Elephant handler Andrew Anderton was found lying on the floor at the Irem Shrine Armory in Wilkes Barre, PA, which was hosting the James Hamid Circus. Standing nearby was Dumbo the elephant.

Circus Chairman John Richards says Anderton was alone with Dumbo when the incident occurred.

Richards says it’s believed Anderton was trying to fix some electrical wires in the building’s ceiling which were sparking near Dumbo.

Richards speculates the elephant, in an attempt to protect Anderton from the sparking wires, grabbed him and moved him away.

The coroner says Anderton didn’t suffer any electrical injuries and was bumped by the elephant. The coroner has no doubt the elephant caused the multiple traumatic injuries that led to Anderton’s death.

Anderton worked with the elephant for 20 years.

The armory, home to a National Guard brigade, was slated to receive a major face lift last fall including major improvements to electrical systems. The brigade’s facility manager and an electrician inspected the building before the circus arrived and found it safe.

Although this is certainly a unique workplace death, it shares one thing in common with other on-the-job fatalities where an employee is working alone: It will be difficult to know exactly what led to the death because of a lack of witnesses.

Richards told The Times Leader there were only two entities that know exactly what happened. Now one is dead and the elephant can’t talk.

Alejandro Valladares was killed after falling head-first into a trench from the forks of a forklift at a construction site in Hermosa Beach.

Valladares was buried beneath excavated soil that caved in on top of him.

Workers for a contractor, David B. Shaw Concrete and Block, were installing a temporary shoring beam into a 12-foot-long trench.

Valladares was standing on a plywood platform that had been placed on the fork of the forklift. He was using a handheld compactor to drive a beam into a hole. The lift carrying him was about 15 feet from the base of the trench. He lost his balance due to heavy vibration from the compactor.

Workers couldn’t rescue Valladares because the ground in the area wasn’t stable.

Emergency workers used cranes to recover his body, a task that took four hours.

Cal-OSHA stopped work at the site and is investigating.

Valladares was just 29-year-old.

Trenches more than five-feet deep must be properly shored. Also, workers should not ride on the forks of a forklift unless a specialized platform is used.

SeaWorld officials say they are reviewing safety and training rules it has in place for interacting with all killer whales at all three of its parks.

Shows with the whales were expected to continue. Trainers won’t enter the water with the whales until the investigation into the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau is completed.

Meanwhile, the former head of animal training at SeaWorld Orlando says rules for handling the killer whales that were in place during his tenure had either been broken or changed.

Thad Lacinak says there were special rules for dealing with Tilikum, the largest whale of his species in captivity.

Because of his size and involvement in the deaths of a trainer at another park in 1991 and a guest at SeaWorld in 1999, Lacinak said a trainer should not have been lying down in the water close to Tilikum as Brancheau did before the attack.

Lacinak said the attack was triggered by the trainer’s mistake, allowing her long ponytail to drift in the water in front of the whale.

He says the whale probably thought the ponytail was a new toy, and that’s why it dragged Brancheau underwater by her hair.

Meanwhile, a report in the Orlando Sentinel says SeaWorld has a policy forbidding its killer-whale trainers from having dangling hair that the animals could grab.

That information was contained in a Cal/OSHA report about a 2006 incident at the company’s San Diego park in which an orca grabbed a trainer by the feet and held him underwater. The trainer suffered injuries to his feet.

The Cal/OSHA report was controversial for another reason. It originally stated, “If someone hasn’t been killed already, it is only a matter of time before it does happen,” regarding trainers working with the whales.

However, after SeaWorld criticized the original report and met with Cal/OSHA officials, that language was taken out of the final report.

What do you think about OSHA’s involvement in this investigation? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

In the first year of the Obama administration, OSHA was busy handing out fines the likes of which hadn’t been seen for eight years. Here’s our rundown of 10 significant fines from the last 12 months, and what they mean for businesses:

1. OSHA issues largest fine ever: $87.4 million to BP. This fine demonstrates OSHA’s intent to check up on companies once they’ve made serious safety mistakes. The agency evaluated BP’s progress after the 2005 fire and explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 more at its Texas City, TX refinery. OSHA issued 270 “notifications of failure to abate” and identified 439 new willful violations at the plant.
2. Two executives face prison time and huge fines in deaths of five workers. Phillipe Goutagny and James Thompson, executives with RPI Coating, each face 2.5 years in prison and a fine up to $1.25 million if convicted. On Oct. 2, 2007, vapor from a solvent ignited inside a tunnel at a hydroelectric plant in Colorado. Workers survived the blast but were overcome by smoke and fumes and died of asphyxiation. OSHA says it will work more closely with the Justice Department in cases like these to bring criminal charges against executives with penalties that include prison time.
3. OSHA wastes no time in using new per-employee citations, issues $1.2 million fine. G.S. Robbins & Co. of St. Louis, MO, was hit with 21 egregious willful citations for hazardous chemical handling. Each citation was on a per-instance basis. Even during this period of difficult economic recovery, OSHA won’t hesitate to use per-instance, per-employee fines to hike total fine amounts. This wasn’t the only instance in which OSHA used per-instance citations in 2009 (see item #7 below).
4. Company hit with $1.14 million fine following employee complaint. Are the big fines relegated only to incidents involving deaths or multiple serious injuries? Hardly. OSHA began a December 2008 inspection at Milk Specialties in Whitehall, WI, in response to an employee complaint. Willful citations were issued for the employer’s failure to comply with OSHA’s confined space and lockout/tagout regulations. OSHA is taking employee complaints seriously.
5. After two similar incidents, owner and manager go to jail. ANC Roofing of Santa Rosa, CA, owner Kenneth Alton pleaded no contest to failing to protect employees from a hazard. He was sentenced to nine months in jail and a $248,000 fine. Supervisor Robert McAfee pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor violation and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. On May 11, 2006, an ANC employee backed into an unguarded skylight and fell 21 feet to his death. Four months later, another ANC employee suffered major head trauma when he fell 19 feet from an unprotected skylight.
6. OSHA fines Wal-Mart $7,000 for worker trampling incident. A Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by a crowd of 2,000 shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving in 2008. OSHA said Wal-Mart should have recognized that its employees were exposed to being crushed by the crowd based on previous experience. Wal-Mart fought the fine. OSHA used the General Duty Clause to issue the fine and has said it will use the GDC in similar situations where safety was compromised but a specific regulation wasn’t violated.
7. Company faces $1.09 million OSHA fine for 202 willful violations. OSHA didn’t really need anyone’s permission to start issuing per-instance fines (see item #3 above), but it got the go-ahead in the form of a decision from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC). The appeals panel ruled OSHA properly cited Smalis Painting Co. on a per-employee basis for violations of the lead-in-construction regulations, in connection with a project near Pittsburgh, PA. OSHA monitored six Smalis employees for lead exposure. Based on that data, OSHA issued violations for all employees who would have been exposed to the same hazards.
8. OSHA is getting companies to agree to implement safety and health improvements above what’s required by regulations. A-1 Excavating of Bloomer, WI, agreed to make numerous changes in its work processes in exchange for lowering fines from almost $900,000 to $470,000. A-1 has to hire a full-time safety director, develop and implement site-specific safety and health plans for all major projects, identify all job sites to OSHA before work begins for the next three years, reduce the salary of job superintendents and project managers who fail to comply with OSHA requirements, and retain a third-party safety consultant.
9. Cintas agrees to pay $3 million in fines and to comply with other conditions. In some cases, it hasn’t been an either-or situation between fines and strict safety improvements. After a worker was killed when he fell onto an unguarded conveyor and was dragged into a 300-degree industrial dryer, Cintas agreed to the huge fine and to retain a team of independent experts to develop permanent fixes and review interim controls. Cintas also agreed to hire additional safety staff, conduct more frequent internal safety inspections, and establish new systems to examine employee complaints.
10. A construction company agrees to pay $750,000 in fines and cut the pay of unsafe supervisors. Broadway Concrete of New York, NY, agreed to reduce the salaries of senior job superintendents who failed to comply with job safety practices. Broadway also agreed to hire a full-time corporate safety director, develop a new corporate safety plan, and provide OSHA with information on major projects and access to all job sites for the next four years.

What do you think of OSHA’s recent enforcement tactics? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

A state employee, Terri Lynn Brennan, was arrested in the alleged scheme in which forgers gathered account information from checks companies used to pay OSHA fines. Then, authorities say Brennan used the information to create bogus checks and cash them.

So far, investigators have turned up only a handful of companies known to be victims with a total loss of a few thousand dollars.

For example: O’Bey Construction Corp. paid a $315 OSHA fine. It was swindled out of $745 when a phony check bearing the company’s account numbers was cashed at a Wal-Mart.

Authorities believe the swindlers may have kept the phony check amounts below $1,000 to avoid detection.

State officials say the labor department has modified rules on the handling and storage of OSHA fine-payment checks. They don’t believe there were other state employees carrying out the same type of fraud.

Despite the request by CITGO not to release the video, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board made it public.

The CSB is involved in an ongoing investigation of the July 19, 2009, explosion and fire at the company’s refinery in Corpus Christi, TX. One person was injured and another treated for possible chemical exposure.

As part of an interim report, the CSB released the video showing a pipe failure, release of fumes, and the resulting fire. The video shows the spread of the flammable vapor cloud and the moment when the flammable vapor was ignited. It’s a vivid picture of the severity of the release and fire.

CITGO asked CSB not to release the video on national security grounds saying that it would “only sensationalize this unfortunate accident.”

The CSB received the OK to release the video from the Department of Homeland Security, which said the footage didn’t fall under certain classifications requiring protection from disclosure.

A new law prohibits companies from classifying safety information as “sensitive” in an effort to keep it from becoming public. The law was in response to the August 2008 Bayer CropScience explosion in West Virginia that killed two.

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee accused Bayer of withholding critical information from emergency responders and investigators and the CSB.

Do you think the CSB was correct to release the video? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The blast at Valero’s Texas City, TX, oil refinery resulted in the death of 40-year-old Tommy Mannis. Two other employees received minor injuries, one requiring hospitalization.

Right before the blast occurred, a work crew had been attempting to restart a boiler that had tripped offline. OSHA is investigating.

The Galveston Daily News reports that the refinery is a multiple recipient of OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program’s STAR award. With an OSHA VPP STAR designation, the facility isn’t subject to routine OSHA inspections or those conducted through special emphasis programs. STAR facilities do undergo OSHA review every 3-5 years.

A special emphasis program had recently targeted oil refineries. In June 2009, acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab sent a letter to refineries across the nation emphasizing the need to comply with process safety management standards, as a result of conditions OSHA inspectors were finding during inspections.

So here’s a question: Do you think OSHA VPP STAR facilities should be exempt from inspections? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

Some of the companies didn’t disclose previous violations as required. Now the Massachusetts Highway Division is demanding written explanations from at least 7 companies awarded contracts as to why they didn’t reveal the violations on forms they submitted to obtain bidding approval for state projects.

The situation came to light after a review by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University.

Example: Liddell Brothers of Halifax, MA, received a $2.6 million stimulus contract. OSHA had cited the company four separate times since 2007 for failing to provide cave-in protection for workers in trenches. Liddell paid $46,580 in OSHA fines.

Former OSHA administrator Charles Jeffress said companies with repeat or willful safety violations should not get state contracts. In 2007, Liddell was issued a willful violation.

Liddell attorney Robert Lizza said in an e-mail that because the company immediately abated the hazards, paid its fines and the issue didn’t progress to a formal proceeding, as stated in the application form, Liddell didn’t disclose the violations.

The key question on the form asks contractors to report “any civil, criminal, or administrative proceedings involving public contracts, safety, environmental laws, or regulations” for the previous 3 years.

The Highway Division’s administrator said it doesn’t have enough staff to verify the accuracy of the information provided by contractors. The agency has threatened to refer the contractors in question to the state attorney general’s office for making false claims on the applications.

What do you think? Should contractors be barred from receiving government contracts if they have been issued a willful safety citation in the previous 3 years? Does abatement wipe the slate clean? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The blast at the Crittenden Middle School happened while construction crews were repairing a roof that was damaged in recent storms. A 20-foot by 50-foot wall collapsed.

While it’s not known exactly what caused the explosion, a local TV station reports that the workers were using propane to melt tar being used to make roof repairs.

Two workers remain hospitalized in a burn unit, their conditions not released to the public. Four others are still hospitalized, one in critical, two in serious and one in stable condition. The two other workers were treated and released.

The school was closed for one day. After inspectors determined that most of the school was still safe, students returned, but several classrooms near the collapsed wall won’t be able to be used for some time.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) originally drafted The American Communities Right to Public Information Act as a separate piece of legislation. It was passed into law as part of an appropriations bill for The Department of Homeland Security.

The amendment makes clear that the Sensitive Security Information designation created by recent homeland security laws can’t be used to withhold information that the government should share with the public.

The legislation was drafted in response to the Bayer CropScience explosion in August 2008 that killed two workers in Institute, WV.

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee accused Bayer of using a “campaign of secrecy” regarding the explosion.

The committee said Bayer withheld critical information from emergency responders and investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

The appropriations bill says information may not be designated as security sensitive “to conceal a violation of law, inefficiency, or administrative error … to prevent embarrassment to a person, organization or agency … to restrain competition … or to prevent or delay the release of information that doesn’t require protection in the interest of transportation security, including basic scientific research information.”

Police in Port Panama City say the explosion happened in two dust collectors. An investigation will determine what triggered it.

Authorities say it started in an area where a coating is put on pipes.

The facility will be shut down for several days while OSHA investigates.

After going from three shifts to one and briefly shutting down in December, Monday — the day of the blast — was the first time that all three shifts were up and running again.

Federal statistics show, in a 25-year period, 281 combustible dust explosions and fires killed 119 workers and injured 718.

This week, our SafetyNewsAlert.com Quick Poll was on combustible dust. We asked: Do you think OSHA needs a new standard on combustible dust?

• 51% said no, OSHA should use its existing regulations, and
• 49% said yes, current regulations aren’t enough.

A total of 430 readers voted. Check our home page for a new poll later this week.

In April, Charles Sittig was killed at the CES Environmental Services facility in Port Arthur, TX.

Three men have died at CES plants since December 2008.

OSHA cited the company for 34 violations, including a willful citation for failure to establish a rescue team capable of assisting a worker who becomes incapacitated while cleaning out chemicals tanks.

Other citations include raised platforms without railings, poorly maintained ladders and failure to develop decontamination procedures.

The company has 15 days to decide whether to contest the citations.

Two workers died recently at CES’ Houston plant. In December 2008, one worker died in an explosion that sent metal debris into nearby properties. In July 2009, a CES employee died when an explosion and flash fire at the Houston plant knocked him from the top of a mobile tank he was filling with water. OSHA is still investigating that death.

And the rulemaking process is moving along.

OSHA has submitted the proposed regulation to the Office of Management and Budget for review.

That news comes in the wake of the Chemical Safety Board’s recent release of its investigation into the explosion and fire that killed 14 and injured 36 at the Imperial Sugar plant in Wentworth, GA.

In a 25-year period, 281 combustible dust explosions and fires killed 119 workers and injured 718.

A number of OSHA standards address aspects of combustible dust control, including those on housekeeping, emergency action plans, ventilation, spray finishing, permit required confined spaces and electric power generation.

Do you think a separate OSHA standard on combustible dust is necessary? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below, and take our Quick Poll on our home page.

In its final report on the explosion, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) said ongoing releases of sugar from poorly designed and maintained dust collection equipment, conveyors, and sugar handling equipment led to the blast.

Inadequate housekeeping allowed highly combustible sugar dust to build up throughout the plant’s packing buildings.

A conveyor had been enclosed, creating a confined, unventilated space where sugar dust could accumulate to an explosive concentration. It’s likely the dust was ignited by an overheated bearing.

The initial explosion caused a cascade of secondary dust explosions in adjacent packing buildings.

On top of these problems, the CSB said Imperial hadn’t conducted evacuation drills for its employees and that the explosions and fires disabled most of the emergency lighting, making it difficult for workers to escape.

A 2006 CSB study identified 281 combustible dust fires and explosions between 1980 and 2005 that killed 119 workers and injured 718, and extensively damaged industrial facilities. In April, OSHA started development of a combustible dust standard. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has recommended practices for preventing dust fires and explosions.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has found that the explosion and fire that killed four employees at T2 Laboratories in Jacksonville, FL, on Dec. 19, 2007, was caused by a runaway chemical reaction that likely resulted from an inadequate reactor cooling system.

The CSB report says T2 didn’t recognize all of the potential hazards of its manufacturing process.

The explosion was so powerful that 28 people working at nearby businesses were injured when building walls and windows blew in. The blast damaged buildings within a quarter-mile of the T2 facility.

Reactive chemical hazards are a major cause of workplace deaths and serious injuries. A previous CSB report identified 167 incidents over a two-decade period and made recommendations to improve reactive chemical safety.