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California’s initiative to improve refinery safety is getting a big thumb’s up from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB). A report recently released by the California Interagency Working Group on Refinery Safety “is an important milestone for improving refinery safety across the State of California,” said CSB Chairperson Rafael Moure-Eraso.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is demanding access to the Tesoro refinery in Martinez, California, in order to investigate a Feb. 12 chemical spill that resulted in first- and second-degree burns to two workers.

After six workers were killed in a massive gas explosion at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown, Connecticut four years ago, federal investigators tallied hundreds of violations at the site and issued $16.6 million in penalties against more than a dozen companies — the third-largest workplace-safety fine in the nation's history.

OSHA has cited Artbeats Inc. for repeat and serious violations of workplace safety standards at its Cheshire facility. The company, which manufactures reproductions of prints and paintings, faces $56,430 in proposed fines following an inspection by OSHA's Bridgeport Area Office begun Dec. 3, 2013, in response to a worker complaint.

In the wake of a house fire that killed a mother and eight children in Kentucky January 30, Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI) is offering tips on how other can avoid similar fire tragedies. Police said the fire in the Kentucky incident started when a combustible material fell against an electric heater in a bedroom as a family slept.

Serious workplace safety violations were found in connection with a September 2013 explosion that killed one worker and injured another at Canastota Wastewater Treatment plant in New York, according to OSHA.

FabEnCo, Inc., the world’s leading manufacturer of self-closing industrial safety gates, announced today that the company has developed a new Pallet Safety Gate that will be added to the company’s full line of safety gate products.

With the devastating April 2013 explosion in West, Texas still fresh in the minds of Americans, OSHA is hoping that a just-initiated partnership with the Agricultural Retailers Association and The Fertilizer Institute will help prevent future tragedies involving ammonium nitrate – the culprit in the West, Texas catastrophe.

The ASSE and AIHA weigh in on OSHA’s proposed silica rule, a worker dies from heat stress and good news about air pollution in the U.S. were among this week’s top EHS-related stories as featured on ISHN.com: