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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration today announced it has resolved litigation with Imperial Sugar Co. stemming from the February 2008 explosion at its Port Wentworth, Ga., plant and subsequently discovered safety and health violations at the company's Gramercy, La., facility.

"The 2008 explosion took the lives of 14 people and seriously injured dozens of others. Clearly, health and safety must become this company's top priority," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "This agreement requires Imperial Sugar to make extensive changes to its safety practices, and it underscores the importance of proactively addressing workplace safety and health hazards."

In the agreement, submitted to Judge Covette Rooney of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, Imperial Sugar will pay $4,050,000 in penalties for the 124 violations found at its Port Wentworth plant after the explosion, plus an additional $2 million for the 97 violations found in March 2008 after an inspection of its only other facility, located in Gramercy. The citations alleged, among other safety and health hazards, that the company failed to properly address combustible dust hazards.

As part of the settlement, Imperial Sugar agrees that it has corrected all deficiencies at both of its plants or will correct those deficiencies according to a set schedule. Preventative maintenance and housekeeping programs have been established, and Imperial Sugar will identify and map locations where combustible dust may be present at its plants. The company also will conduct regular internal safety inspections and employee training, and hire an independent expert at each plant to ensure that there are adequate avenues of communication on worker safety and health issues within the company.

Furthermore, Imperial Sugar has hired and agrees to continue to employ a full-time certified safety professional for the Georgia plant. The company will retain outside consultants to conduct safety audits for a three-year period and evaluate Imperial's programs relating to managing combustible dust hazards, such as housekeeping, preventative maintenance and protective equipment for workers. OSHA will approve all safety, health and organizational experts retained by the company.

OSHA will receive current and accurate injury logs whenever requested, and OSHA will be allowed to enter the facility and conduct inspections based on those logs without objection from the company. OSHA will regularly monitor progress and compliance with the agreement and continue to conduct regular inspections of the facility.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to assure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.

The OSHA Combustible Dust Team's web chat with more than 400 stakeholders also gave some idea of the timetable for the combustible dust standard that will be developed.

OSHA's first virtual stakeholder meeting on June 28 was a hit, understandably, because it focused on a topic that will soon be addressed in an OSHA rulemaking: combustible dust. More than 400 people offered comments, OSHA says, and the agency has posted the archived chat online so others can read it.

The OSHA Combustible Dust Team responded to many of the comments as they came in, giving some idea of the dust standard's timetable -- a small business impact panel will evaluate it in April 2011 -- as well as recognition of NFPA standards, training requirements, retroactivity of the standard, and other issues. The team mentioned the Labor Department's Work in Progress blog and encouraged chat participants to read materials and offer comments there.

Several commenters said employee training/involvement is essential. Some predicted the standard will be challenging for small businesses; comments asserted certain mineral dusts are not explosive and in fact are useful for inerting combustible dusts, agricultural dusts should not be covered, and OSHA must adequately train its enforcement personnel so they can fairly evaluate facilities' dusts and their control methods. One commenter suggested that the standard contain a decision tree for evaluating and controlling dust hazards at a site, and another recommended that the standard use an "action level" and "PEL limit" approach to keep compliance costs down.

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On June 28, CSB approved series of 18 urgent recommendations aimed at preventing fires and explosions caused when fuel gas is used to clean or purge gas pipes of debris, air or other substances, typically during facility construction and maintenance.

The recommendations, which were directed to OSHA, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and others, resulted from extensive CSB investigations into the Feb. 7 explosion at the Kleen Energy power plant in Middletown, Conn., that caused six deaths and multiple injuries, and the June 9, 2009, explosion at the ConAgra Foods Slim Jim plant in Garner, N.C., that killed four workers and injured 67.

The accident at Kleen Energy occurred during the planned cleaning of natural gas piping during the commissioning and startup phase of construction. Natural gas was forced through large piping that was to fuel the plant’s large electricity-generating gas turbines, in an operation called a “natural gas blow.” This gas was vented directly to the atmosphere from open pipe ends that were less than 20 feet off the ground and were located in congested areas adjacent to the power generation building.

CSB investigators obtained gas company records showing some two million standard cubic feet of natural gas were released to the atmosphere during gas blows on Feb. 7 – enough, the CSB calculated, to provide heating and cooking fuel to a typical American home every day for more than 25 years. The gas found an ignition source and exploded.

In CSB’s recommendations, OSHA is urged to pass regulations that would prohibit the use of natural gas for pipe cleaning, the cause of the explosion at Kleen Energy, and would prohibit the venting or purging of fuel gas indoors, the cause of the explosion at the ConAgra Slim Jim plant. Both explosions resulted from releases of natural gas during the installation and commissioning of new piping that led to gas-fired appliances.

OSHA also is urged to require companies to involve their workers and contractors in developing safe procedures and training for handling fuel gas.

In testimony at a June 28 field hearing before a subcommittee of the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, CSB Board Member John Bresland said there is a “significant gap” in the current gas safety standards for general industry and construction, “a gap that threatens the continued safety of workers at facilities that handle flammable natural gas.”

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