Today, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released an update on the agency’s investigation of a fatal release of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas at the PEMEX Deer Park Refinery in Texas on October 10, 2024, which killed two workers and injured 13 others. During a maintenance activity at 4:23 p.m., approximately 27,000 pounds of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas were released. In addition...

British Columbia’s new First Aid Amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation relating to occupational first aid took effect November 1, 2024. These new rules/approaches to first aid are something we should all celebrate. They are a true “performance-oriented” approach to establishing the level of first Aid needed, as well as the level of supplies and training. To...

An investigation into an industrial explosion at an oil and gas facility has led to significant fines being laid by WorkSafe BC. A contractor who handles oilfield waste, has been ordered to pay just over $42,000 for safety violations. Two welders, working directly above a fluid tank, were injured after an explosion inside a shaker building. According to WorkSafe BC, the company failed to conduct...

Last week, we saw the devastation of a catastrophic failure of a pressure vessel (PV) in Louisville, KY. We still do not know the cause of this failure, just that it was a “cook vessel #6. SAFTENG members can see my breakdown of the photographic evidence available from the Courrier Journal (local Louisville newspaper). But this video is a “marketing” video from the company’s...

Respondent operates a seafood processing and distribution facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts that uses anhydrous ammonia in a refrigeration “process” as defined by 40 C.F.R. § 68.3, in a series of interconnected pipes and vessels at the Facility (the “Process”). According to the respondent’s 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 Reporting Year Tier II reports, the facility maintained an average daily...

ATF Louisville said it has definitively identified the origin of last week’s deadly plant explosion. The investigation led them to the origin of the explosion: Cooking Vessel No. 6 on the South side of the facility. They can say that the vessel failed definitively… it was likely an issue with overpressurization. Some of that vessel was actually found on Payne Street after the explosion. “There’s...

Today the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) announced that it is sending a team of investigators to Louisville, Kentucky, to investigate the fatal explosion that occurred last week on November 12, 2024, at the Givaudan Sense Colour facility in Louisville, KY. Two employees were killed and eleven others were injured by the explosion. According to the company, in addition to...

On May 29, 2024, at 3:22 p.m., Employee #1, 26, was attempting to rescue a fellow employee who had been overcome by hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas in an underground pump house. Prior to this incident, multiple coworkers had been working in the pump house and were exposed to H2S gas emitted from a pipe containing water with by-products from sugar beets, dirt, mud, and chemicals used in water treatment....

Another example shows us that serious hazards can be found OUTSIDE of chemical processes, and applying the Line Break/Equipment Opening Procedure and Permit to these hazards could go a long way in controlling these recognized hazards. DEFINING and QUANTIFYING “hazardous energy” sources is STEP 1 in ensuring the process/system can be safely opened. Step 2 is applying LOTO to these tasks...

A review of BLS data shows there were 15,400 work-related hearing loss illness cases in 2022. Of those cases, approximately 68% occurred in the manufacturing industry. The incidence rate of hearing losses in wood product manufacturing was 23.1, compared to 1.3 for all Private Industries. The incidence rate for hearing losses in poultry processing was 24.5, compared to 1.3 for all Private Industries....

What GAO Found Three (3) major hazards caused most of the injuries and illnesses in general warehousing (which includes e-commerce warehouses) and the companies that deliver these orders to consumers (“last-mile delivery”), according to Bureau of Statistics (BLS) data. Overexertion and bodily reaction, the most common hazard (see figure), can cause musculoskeletal disorders, such as tendonitis or...

The following is a brief description of the collection of information requirements contained in the 13 Carcinogens Standard: establishing and implementing a medical surveillance program for workers assigned to enter regulated areas; informing workers of their medical examination results; and providing workers with access to their medical records. Further, employers must retain worker...