We have yet another failure of enormous proportions. When two workers, one of which is a Supervisor, are opening a liquid chlorine line and they have on supplied-air respirators without the regulator attached to the facepiece we have entered into the Twilight Zone. WorksafeBC has levied a $318,707 fine against the city’s water-treatment plant for:
While performing upgrades and maintenance at the plant, two workers were exposed to a residual amount of chlorine gas, a toxic process gas, which remained in the line the workers were isolating from the main chlorine source at the facility. Both workers, one of whom was a supervisor, had been wearing self-contained breathing apparatus, but their regulators had not been connected to their full facepieces.
The employer failed to:
- develop an exposure control plan for chlorine gas for this facility
- conduct a risk assessment
- prepare written safe work procedures for the handling of chlorine in relation to the hazardous tasks being performed
- provide its workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety, a repeated violation based on prior violations that had occurred at another of the employer’s locations