On April 17, 2013 explosions
rocked the small town of West, Texas. Fire fighters initially responded to a
fire at West Fertilizer Company owned by Adair Grain, Inc. but as water was
used to put the fire out, an explosion incurred taking with it a neighboring
50-unit apartment building and parts of a nearby middle school, as well as
heavily damaging a nearby nursing home.
With many lawsuits pending, OSHA has made its initial determination with
regard to the West Fertilizer Company leading federal workplace safety
regulators to propose initial fines in the amount of $118,300 against the
company. This number, given the magnitude of the occurrence is thought to be
extremely low.
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The explosion killed 15 people,
injured 300 and left an estimated $100 million in damage. With an active
investigation of the explosion site still ongoing, there is still much
speculation as to its cause. With several multimillion-dollar lawsuits in
process, OSHA is the first official body to bring action.
Senator Barbara Boxer,
chairperson of the Senates Environment and Public Works Committee, made this
announcement because OSHA itself has been shut down since October 1 due to
government shutdowns. Senator Boxer made this announcement in an effort to
prevent another tragedy.
OSHA has issued 24 citations
including the handling and storage of dangerous chemicals including the tons of
solid ammonium nitrate fertilizer, one of the primary causatory explosive substances.
Ammonium nitrate is a common farm
commodity, purchased by the ton. It is banned in other countries or heavily
regulated because of its explosive nature. However in the U. S. it is largely
unregulated.
“The attorneys for the company
are reviewing the citation,” West Fertilizer spokesman Dan Keeney said
Thursday. “Their initial reviews showed that the accusations have nothing to do
with the April accident.” Indeed, according to Boxer, many of these citations are violations not
related to the event. OSHA is not done with their investigation, but by law OSHA
is required to issue their investigative findings within six months of an
occurrence. This deadline is next Thursday. But due to the partial government
shutdown, OSHA offices are closed leading all to wonder if West Fertilizer will
likely be spared the heaviest of the possible fines. Yet Texas representative
Bill Flores who represents West, says “At first blush it’s probably reasonable,
especially when you consider 15 people died and a small town got seriously
damaged–$100, $200 million damage.” Similar catastrophic events where OSHA
levied fines against BP were accompanied by paid $21 million fine in 2005 for
the explosion at the Texas City refinery that killed 15, $50.6 million fine in
2012 and $13 million fine in 2013 for other violations in the same city.
Clearly citations can be very
expensive, lawsuits even more so.
But they can be avoided with increased
attention to compliance with OSHA regulations and continued attention to the application
of best practices at the site of a manufacturing or storage facility. Every
company should have a site health and safety plan that reflects the risk
related to their environment. West Fertilizer lacked an Emergency Response
Plan. While the other 23 citations against West have not been specifically
identified, all companies should use the West Fertilizer experience as an
opportunity to conduct their own internal investigation. If there is doubt
about internal findings, managers would be best served by hiring an independent
environmental consultant to conduct a comprehensive study of the site to
highlight potential violations, test air quality, soil and neighboring water
supply. Not only could this proactive assessment save thousands if not millions
of dollars in OSHA fines, it could also save human lives and their potential
associative lawsuits.
Read more at Dallas
News.
Explosion
photo by Mike Stone/Reuters via itv.