BOSTON — The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has discovered an explosion that killed one employee at a pharmaceutical chemical plant in Massachusetts could have been prevented, and proposed just about $300,000 in consequences.
The May explosion on the Seqens plant in Newburyport, Massachusetts, killed Jack O’Keefe, 62, of Methuen. Video confirmed lots of the roof torn off a development.
Results of the OSHA investigation introduced Thursday discovered Seqens and its subsidiary PolyCarbon Industries Inc. “lacked safeguards” within the chemical-making procedure. The investigation discovered a lot of deficiencies within the facility’s protection control program for extremely hazardous chemical compounds. It additionally discovered the corporate didn’t resolve the combustibility hazards of fabrics used within the manufacturing of the chemical Dekon 139 and didn’t come with protected higher and decrease temperature limits to forestall the decomposition of Dekon 139.
O’Keefe was once killed when a drive vessel exploded.
The stipulations discovered throughout the investigation led OSHA to quote each firms with 11 violations, together with 8 severe ones, and suggest $298,254 in consequences. Representatives from the corporations are anticipated to satisfy with the corporate Tuesday, which has till Nov. 29 to both succeed in a agreement with OSHA or to contest the citations and consequences.
“The requirements of OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard are stringent and comprehensive because failure to comply fully can have a severe or catastrophic impact on employees that, in this case, cost a worker their life,” mentioned OSHA’s Area Director Sarah Carle in Andover, Massachusetts. “Employers must rigorously, completely and continuously scrutinize, update and maintain each element of the process properly to identify and minimize hazards and protect workers’ safety and health.”
Newburyport Mayor Sean Reardon mentioned it was once “very saddening to see that this incident was preventable.”
(*1*) he mentioned in a commentary.
A spokesman for Seqens didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The plant, in the past referred to as PCI Synthesis, lies just a little greater than 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Boston and has had a string of issues through the years. That precipitated U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton — in whose district the power is situated — to put in writing to the corporate in May difficult a complete accounting of what took place.
A chemical fireplace within the development in June 2021 despatched smoke pouring out of roof vents and precipitated a hazardous fabrics group to reply, consistent with a fireplace division commentary on the time.
In 2020, government mentioned a chemical response brought about a sequence of explosions on the plant. That took place a 12 months after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration discovered “serious” violations in how the corporate controlled extremely hazardous chemical compounds, consistent with on-line company information.
The manufacturing unit has additionally been cited by way of OSHA for place of work protection violations and in 2019 it paid a greater than $50,000 penalty to settle Environmental Protection Agency fees that it violated hazardous waste rules.
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