Oregon OSHA has fined a custom crush winery in Dundee $11,100 for violating job safety standards designed to protect workers from the hazards of confined spaces. The division cited the winery following an investigation into the death of a worker. The investigation found that at approximately 10:30 a.m. Feb. 1, 2021, a cellar worker was discovered unresponsive in an empty 30,000-gallon wine tank. The employee was tasked with pumping out about 500 gallons of wine remnants known as lees – a mix of dead yeast, grape skins, seeds, stems, and tartrates – from the tank into a secondary tank for further processing. Low-pressure nitrogen gas was being pumped in from the top of the tank to prevent oxidation of the remnants. The employee was asphyxiated as a result of the displacement of oxygen due to the low-pressure nitrogen gas in the tank.
Oregon OSHA cited the winery for the following serious violations:
- Not performing initial testing for atmospheric hazards before entry.
- Not ensuring that a required attendant and entry supervisor was designated for the permit confined space entry.
- Not developing procedures to ensure employees who are entering permit confined spaces with alternate entry procedures are following those procedures.
Total proposed penalty for these violations: $7,500
- Not ensuring that all confined space permits were reviewed after they were canceled. Several of the permits were not filled out and were missing required information.
- Not making sure all confined space entry permits included information about rescue services and how to contact them.
Total proposed penalty for these violations: $1,200.
- Not having permit entry rescue procedures, including the process for contacting rescue services.
- Not conducting practice entry rescues for presses, tanks, and below-ground permit-required confined spaces.
Total proposed penalty for these violations: $1,200.
- Not training employees on recognizing confined spaces or procedures necessary to safely enter a confined space before an employee’s assigned duties changed.
- Not ensuring that all employees, whose primary language was Spanish, were proficient in their assigned confined space duties.
Total proposed penalty for these violations: $1,200.
More information on confined spaces is available on Oregon OSHA’s website.
