NEWS - Manufacturing

The long-awaited report by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) on the causes of the deadly explosion and fire at Imperial Sugar’s Port Wentworth plant Feb. 7, 2008, was released this week. 
The CSB put blame on Imperial Sugar for failing to run the plant safely, using well-known standards within the food processing industry regarding industrial dusk hazards, and for failing to have emergency methodologies and training of employees in place.
The agency also blamed Zurich Insurance for failing to report on obvious problems at the plant on its last insurance review before the February 2008 incident, in 2007.  “They were focused only on how the buildings would hold up in a hurricane, or other storms,” said the CSB inspection team.
And the CSB's recommendations to protect workers?  It called on manufacturers' trade associations to police themselves and increase training on industrial dust to member companies.  The CSB also called on insurance companies and their trade associations to improve their industrial safety audits and training of insurance representatives. 
The CSB’s final report immediately drew criticism from unions representing food processing employees in manufacturing plants throughout the United States, including a number of Imperial Sugar and Domino Sugar workers, who charged that the CSB had failed workers by not calling for "immediate, emergency changes in OSHA procedures to protect workers.”
After the final vote on the report by the CSB board, CSB Chairman John S. Bresland said he personally shares the frustrations of the worker’s unions and Congressman John Barrow, who filed a bill in February 2009 that calls on OSHA to change its regulations and take action quickly, including the use of the research and recommendations of the CSB in 2006. 
According to Bresland, “Our 2006 findings, after years of study from 2003 to 2006 (after a series of deadly industrial dust explosions in 2003) call for extensive changes in OSHA regulations and practices.  They have implemented only a teeny, tiny bit of what we recommended since then,” he said.
After the CSB released its report Thursday, Barrow, who represents Savannah and Port Wentworth, released a statement saying, "Given the continued threat of combustible dust explosions and fires, this report makes clear why we need a temporary standard to prevent tragedies like the one we had at Imperial Sugar. I commend the Department of Labor for the steps they've taken to get permanent rules governing combustible dust on the books, but the hard reality is that it could be years at best before those regulations are in place. Meanwhile, the risk of another combustible dust explosion or fire still exists. It's clear that we need to move forward on the bill that Congressman Miller and I reintroduced this year to get an emergency temporary standard in place as soon as possible. People's lives are at stake, and we can't afford the time it will take for a permanent standard to work its way through the bureaucracy for things to change. I hope that Georgia's senators will join me in making sure that our bill gets passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law as quickly as possible. If we can prevent another community from going through what we did, we must."
But Thursday night, U.S. senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss issued a joint statement refusing to join Barrow in a call for “emergency temporary standards.” Their statement said: "We believe it is imperative that OSHA and general industry take the lessons learned from the Port Wentworth disaster to prevent future tragedies. The best available science, the experience of stakeholders and the notice-and-comment process are all critical components of formulating effective regulations.  We concur with Chairman Breslan of the Chemical Safety Board that emergency temporary standards seldom withstand court scrutiny. Moreover, these temporary rules only add confusion to the regulatory process.   We will continue to urge Secretary Solis to promulgate effective permanent standards as expeditiously as possible."
But Barrow contends that a bill requiring the changes would hold up to court challenges by companies fined by OSHA, versus temporary OSHA changes.
And Thursday night, Breslan, speaking again about his serious frustration with the lack of action by OSHA on his board’s many recommended changes, said: “Perhaps a bill would hold up. It’s never been tested.  What has not held up to court challenge is temporary changes to OSHA regulations,” by OSHA.
A UFCW union spokesperson, Evan Yeats, present Thursday night said, “You realize this was all just a public relations event, right?”  The UFCW is particularly disappointed in the CSB’s report that calls for trade associations of various manufacturers to police themselves.
“It represents no protection for workers. Since their last report last December, we have called on the CSB to insist that OSHA implement immediate, temporary measures to address this. They did not. The process of changing OSHA regulations takes years. The last time they did it in the '70s, it took 10 years," he said.
The CSB report urged Imperial Sugar to comply with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recommended practices for preventing dust fires and explosions, to develop dust training and housekeeping programs and to improve its evacuation procedures.
The report also called on industry groups AIB International and the American Bakers Association to develop combustible dust training and auditing materials. Imperial's insurer, Zurich Services, and an insurance industry trade association should improve their insurance audit procedures for dust hazards and share their dust hazard training materials with clients, CSB investigators concluded.
"Do you know who AIB International is?" asked Yeats. "They are the industry group that gave the Georgia peanut plant an outstanding report card."
The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. The agency's board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. CSB investigations look into all aspects of chemical accidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure as well as inadequacies in safety regulations, codes, standards, management systems, training and industry practices.
The board does not issue citations or fines but does make safety recommendations to plants, industry organizations, labor groups and regulatory agencies such as OSHA and EPA.
In making its final vote Thursday night to accept the report of its inspectors, the CSB added a sixth recommendation, to the five it had already announced.  The change called for OSHA to move expeditiously in making changes to industrial dust regulations, enforcement procedures and fines

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