OSHA $100,000 CLUB OF SAFETY CITATIONS

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has proposed penalties of $100,000 or more for the following recent alleged failures to protect workers from potential hazards, including many that could have been avoided or mitigated by personal protective equipment (PPE). Companies have 15 business days from receipt of citations and fines to request and participate in informal conferences with OSHA or to contest the citations before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission:

• BP Products North America Inc., $87,430,000 for the company's failure to correct potential hazards faced by employees, mainly at its Texas City, Texas, refinery. This fine is the largest in OSHA's history - four times higher than the prior largest total penalty, which also was issued against BP four years ago. Safety violations at the Texas City refinery resulted in a massive explosion, with 15 deaths and 170 injured, in March 2005. BP entered into a settlement with OSHA in September of that year, under which the company agreed to take corrective actions to eliminate potential hazards similar to those that caused the 2005 tragedy. “When BP signed the OSHA settlement…, it agreed to take comprehensive action to protect employees,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “Instead of living up to that commitment, BP has allowed hundreds of potential hazards to continue unabated.”

• Tempel Grain Elevators LLP, Wiley, Colo., $1,592,500 for 22 willful and 13 serious citations following the May 29, 2009, death of a teenage worker at the company's Haswell, Colo., grain storage facility. The youth suffocated after being engulfed by grain in one of the bins; the company also exposed three other teenage workers to the cited hazards.

• All-Feed Processing and Packaging Inc., Galva, Ill, $518,520 for serious, repeat, willful and failure to abate citations, including insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), training deficiencies, and failure to lockout energy sources during maintenance.

• Loren Cook Co., Springfield, Mo., $511,000 for seven willful and three serious violations, including lack of PPE for workers' faces and extremities, after a worker was killed by an ejected machine part on May 13, 2009.

• Cranesville Aggregate Co., doing business as Scotia Bag Plant, $509,000 for 33 willful, repeat and serious violations, including inadequate respiratory protection, at its cement bagging operation in Scotia, N.Y.

• Cambria Contracting Inc., Lockport, N.Y., $484,000 for 11 willful violations of the construction asbestos standard, including lack of proper respirators and protective clothing, at a demolition jobsite in Buffalo.

• Endres Processing LLC and its subsidiary, Endres Processing Ohio LLC, $472,900 for violations that included exposing workers to combustible dust hazards, including breathing in dust, at its animal feed supplement manufacturing plant in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

• Frit Car Inc., $364,350 for safety and health violations, mainly involving work in confined spaces, at its railcar repair facility in Brewton, Ala.

• UCL Inc., Cincinnati, $321,000 for willful, egregious and serious violations, including lack of appropriate respirators and protective clothing, found during the company's abrasive blasting operation on two I-75 bridge overpasses near Middletown, Ohio.

• New Place Carpentry, New Haven, Conn., $308,500 for willful and repeat fall hazards found during an inspection at sites where the company was doing residential framing work in Plymouth and Metheun, Mass.

• Superior Dairy Inc., $294,950 for serious and willful citations, including confined space entry violations, at its operation in Canton, Ohio.

• Metal Improvement Co., doing business as E/M Coating Services, Lombard, Ill., $275,000 for repeat and serious violations, including fall protection deficiencies.

• Crespac Inc., $266,400 for 34 violations, including inadequate fall and respiratory protection, uncovered during an inspection at the company's thermoformed products manufacturing facility in Tucker, Ga.

• Franklin Non-Ferrous Foundry Inc., $254,000 for 17 violations, including exposure to airborne concentrations of lead, found during an inspection at the company's Franklin, N.H., foundry.

• ALON USA LP, $237,500 for violations following an inspection at the company's crude oil refinery in Big Spring, Texas.

• Los Amigos Tortilla Manufacturing Co., Atlanta, $231,600 for not correcting previous deficiencies, including failure to establish an energy control program to ensure machinery would not start up while employees were conducting maintenance.

• International Bridge & Iron Co., $225,500 for new and recurring safety hazards, including lack of eye protection, at its structural steel and bridge part manufacturing plant in Newington, Conn.

• Hovensa LLC, $222,500 for 56 serious violations found during an inspection after three workers suffered serious burns when sprayed with hot boiler feed water at the company's oil refinery in Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.

• Solid Waste Transfer & Recycling Inc., $212,400 for violations, mainly involving lockout/tagout deficiencies, found at its operation in Newark, N.J.

• Pride Plating Inc., $209,000 for willful, repeat and serious violations, including failure to provide PPE, found during an inspection at the company's Grove, Okla., operation.

• CES Environmental Services Inc., Houston, $207,800 with one willful and 32 serious violations found when OSHA inspected following the death of a worker at a jobsite in Port Arthur, Tex.

• Miami Stevedoring Services, $196,000 for violations, including exposing workers to fall hazards, found when OSHA inspected after a worker fatality at the Bernuth Marine Terminal in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

• Chapman Printing Co., $158,400 for willful and serious violations, including failure to provide employees with PPE, at the company's plant in Huntington, W.Va.

• C.W. Pond Contractors Inc., Norwalk, Conn., $148,000 for violations, including lack of PPE, found following a March 2009 fire at a Stamford, Conn., building where the electrical contractor was working.

• Sunoco Inc. (R&M), $147,000 for willful and serious violations, mainly involving process safety, found during an April 2009 inspection at the company's oil refinery in Oregon, Ohio.

• T&C Construction, Hoover, Ala., $146,000 for violations uncovered during an inspection after an OSHA compliance officer observed that employees laying brick on a house were exposed to a fall hazard.

• Luckinbill Inc., Enid, Okla., $142,800 for failure to protect employees from potential trenching and excavation hazards at a highway worksite near Drummond, Okla.

• International Masonry Inc., Columbus, Ohio, $140,800 for serious and willful violations, including scaffolding deficiencies, found during an investigation into the death of a worker.

• The Dodge Co., $138,000 for 41 violations, including inadequate safeguards involving formaldehyde, found at its embalming fluid manufacturing plant in Cambridge, Mass.

• Burrows Paper Corp., $136,500 for 33 violations after a worker sustained serious arm injuries at its mill in Little Falls, N.Y.

• S.D. Warren Co., $136,000 for 19 violations, including fall hazards, at the paper manufacturer's Somerset Mill in Skowhegan, Maine.

• Atlas Excavating Inc., West Lafayette, Ind., $130,200 for failure to follow workplace safety standards at a trenching operation in Danville, Ill.

• Nichiha USA Inc., $128,560 for violations, including lack of emergency eyewashes, at its fiber cement manufacturing plant in Macon, Ga.

• Hiland Dairy Foods Co., $124,500 for 24 serious violations, mainly involving process safety deficiencies, at the company's plant in Wichita, Kan.

• Farmers Union Coop Supply Co., Stanton, Neb., $120,700 for one willful and nine serious violations after a worker suffocated from lack of oxygen while working in a grain elevator.

• Americold Logistics LLC, $117,000 for 19 violations, including poor respiratory protection, found at the company's underground, refrigerated warehouse and distribution facility in Carthage, Mo.

• Industrial Pipe Fittings LLC (IPF), $116,500 for 47 serious violations, including lack of fall protection, following an inspection at the company's Corsicana, Tex., facility.

• Quinco Steel Inc., Chicago Heights, Ill., $111,100 for willful, serious and repeat violations, including failure to use proper fall protection, found at a bridge construction site in Chicago.

• Veolia ES Technical Solutions, $109,000 for violations found during two investigations that followed a May explosion at the West Carrollton, Ohio, chemical plant.

• NuStar Asphalt Refining Co. LLC, $105,750 for 24 serious violations, including lack of emergency escape respirators, found at the company's Paulsboro, N.J., worksite.

• Columbus Steel Castings Co., $102,000 for serious and repeat violations, including inadequate protection against welding rays and airborne overexposures to silica, at its Columbus, Ohio, plant.