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“OSHA is warning this industry that employers have a legal obligation to protect and train their workers,” Michaels said in an Aug. 4 press conference call. “We will not tolerate failure to meet our standard for grain handling facilities and we will take violations of these standards very seriously. “
Letters will be sent to farms and industries that use grain elevators, flour mills, flour mills and corn mills.
“I am appalled by the outrageously reckless behavior of some operators of grain storage facilities,” Michaels said. “OSHA has investigated several cases involving the entry of workers into grain storage elevators or elevators where we found that the employer was aware of the hazard and OSHA standards, but did not failed to train or protect its workers. OSHA has aggressively pursued these cases and will continue to use our enforcement authority to the extent possible. “
Cooperative Plus Fine $ 721,000
Also on August 4, OSHA proposed fines of $ 721,000 against Cooperative Plus Inc. in Burlington, Wisconsin, for violating federal workplace safety standards. OSHA alleges that this employer, a farmer-owned cooperative, put workers at risk of being engulfed and suffocated in grain storage bins without proper equipment and procedures. In a near-tragedy on February 7, a worker was trapped in soybeans up to his chest in a temperature of 25 degrees. The worker was rescued after a 4 hour ordeal and suffered from hypothermia.
According to Michaels, the bin auger was not locked; the worker was not attached to a harness or other retrieval device; there were no observers stationed nearby; oxygen was not measured in the tank prior to entry; and no permit for security procedures had been completed prior to entry.
“In other words, this employer has ignored a long list of common sense and widely accepted safety practices,” Michaels said. “This was a standard operating procedure at Cooperative Plus. Walking into a grain silo without taking proper security precautions is like playing Russian roulette. It is against the law to send an employee to a grain elevator without taking these precautions. “
OSHA cited Cooperative Plus for 10 willful violations. Two intentional infractions per instance are not providing workers entering grain storage elevators with safety harnesses and lifelines and providing an observer while other workers have entered grain elevators. A citation was issued for each OSHA documented bin entry in which the employer failed to meet these requirements. OSHA has also published other willful violations that deal with the company failing to ensure that safe procedures are in place for entry into the trash; prohibit workers from walking on grain inside the elevator; provide emergency equipment to workers entering the bins; and implement an emergency action plan.
In a press release sent to EHS today, Cooperative Plus said the company has not yet been able to examine these allegations in detail and therefore cannot comment on them at this time.
“But CPI has been and is a safety-conscious company, and we care deeply about the safety and health of our employees, on and off the job,” the statement added. “If we need to make changes to further protect their safety and health in the workplace, we will. But, to the extent that the OSHA citations are factually or legally groundless, we will fight them vigorously.
The company has 15 working days from receipt of its citations and proposed sanctions to comply or challenge the findings before the Independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Board.
According to Michaels, OSHA has expanded its investigation into safety practices at other Cooperative Plus facilities located in Southeast Wisconsin.
Protect workers
The citations against Cooperative Plus come a week after a separate and particularly tragic incident at an Illinois grain elevator in which two teenagers, 14 and 19, were killed and a 20-year-old was hospitalized after being also engulfed in grain. In a third case last year, a South Dakota Wheat Growers Association employee was killed after being engulfed in grain at a wheat handling facility. In May, OSHA fined the South Dakota Wheat Growers Association more than $ 1.6 million.
OSHA conducted a retrospective review of its Grain Handling Facilities Standard in 2003 and found that the standard was successful in educating employers on proper safety procedures.
“The standard is effective,” Michaels said EHS today during the press conference. “The problem is, there are grain plant operators that don’t meet the standard, so we are pursuing them very aggressively. “
Approximately 1,900 OSHA letters will be sent to OSHA federal state facilities, and the remaining 1,400 letters will notify facilities in states with their own state occupational safety and health plans. In addition, the agency will launch inspection programs targeting grain facilities in the Midwestern and Great Plains states, including Colorado, Wyoming, Illinois and Wisconsin. Nebraska, Missouri, Montana and South Dakota.
“We want to access these facilities before the workers die rather than after,” Michaels said.
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