Report cites unsafe equipment, failure to investigate near misses
September 22, 2011
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) today released its final report on a series of three accidents that occurred over a 33-hour period on January 22 and 23, 2010, at the DuPont Corporation’s Belle, West Virginia, chemical manufacturing plant – including a fatal release of deadly phosgene gas, which was used as a chemical weapon in World War One.
Zaloudek Grain Co., where Bryce Gannon and Tyler Zander each lost a leg after they were caught in an auger on Aug. 4, did not have workers’ compensation insurance at the time of the accident.
The number of fires in the U.S. decreased slightly in 2010, although the number of deaths caused by those fires was up, according to a report just issued by the National Fire Protection Association.
An OSHA investigation undertaken after a maintenance employee at Anchor Hocking in Lancaster, Ohio suffered an amputation found that workers had not been trained in recommended “lockout/tagout” procedures for isolating the energy sources of machines to prevent their accidental operation.
Despite sending letters about safe grain handling procedures to 13,000 grain elevator operators in 2010 and 2011, OSHA seems to be having trouble getting the word out to grain operators.
Did you know that OSHA has two different types of regulations, general and specific, that apply to emergency shower and eyewash station equipment designed to promote eye safety under certain work conditions?
Mine safety advocates are crying foul over the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s(MSHA) decision to downshift in its drive toward a rule that would require safety devices on hazardous mining machines.