A jury trial is set for the former employee charged in the February home explosion that killed one volunteer firefighter and injured 13 more people. He is facing a felony charge of involuntary manslaughter and three other misdemeanors relating to the unlawful transfer, release, maintenance, and control of liquid petroleum gas. The worker, 67, has been released on a $5,000 unsecured bond and is prohibited...

This week, EPA finalized a rule to ban some uses of CTC that have already ceased and establish robust workplace protections, including a Workplace Chemical Protection Program (WCPP), including an inhalation exposure concentration limit, direct dermal contact controls, and related workplace exposurecontrols, and prescriptive controls, for uses not prohibited to address the unreasonable risk to human...

OSHA has released comprehensive data collected on more than 890,000 workplace injuries and illnesses at more than 91,000 workplaces in calendar year 2023, including incident-level details on the conditions and circumstances of injury and illness events. Federal electronic recordkeeping and reporting requirements require certain employers to use OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application to submit injury...

There has been a lot of armchair quarterbacking regarding the decision to Vent & Burn the VC railcars in East Palestine, OH. My personal and professional opinion, knowing what I knew at the time, was that V&B was the correct decision. These decisions are always challenging to make, but failing to perform V&B on these cars left the potential for a BLEVE (of sorts) to occur. I have posted...

The gas main explosion caused 30 homes in Wessington to be evacuated. A company and contractor have been fined after a gas main explosion led to the evacuation of 30 homes in a village. Residents were forced to leave their properties on 21 June 2022 after a worker struck the underground gas main while installing fencing, causing the explosion. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said the blast...

I have written extensively about pressurized containers in the fire safety arena catastrophically failing and leading to injuries. But this event is new to me. I have no idea what “detonators” are used for in a fire protection system; can anyone who does this for a living explain? UPDATE: Many THANKS to everyone for sending me more info. The source of the explosion was fire suppression...

Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the statutory authority to set phase-out dates for ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and to evaluate potential risks posed by proposed ODS substitutes. Under the terms of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, EPA promulgated regulations to phase out the production of Halon 1301....

A manufacturer and distributor of specialty silicone chemicals will pay $1.3 million in penalties after an explosion and fire at its Waukegan plant in May 2019 claimed the lives of four (4) workers.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration reached a settlement agreement with the company after an investigation revealed the facility failed to ensure electrical equipment complied with OSHA...

I know we hear a lot about using injury rates as a leading indicator/predictor of how well the SMS is functioning. I am one of those voices! But I have always held stead fast that our lagging indicators can play a key role in painting a picture of SMS weaknesses. I have always liked how MO-OSHA does their state “injury data analysis” and it is a model every workplace should follow&#...

Many types of industrial equipment can potentially produce an explosive oil mist if a fault develops. This includes almost all equipment where oil is under pressure, such as hydraulic systems, pressurised lubrication, oil-based heat transfer systems among others. These are in widespread use and appear in many industries, such as service plant rooms and production facilities. As part of controlling...

HSE has identified inconsistencies in the application and supervision of welding of safety-critical metallic components. Such shortcomings have led to failures with high consequences such as fatalities. A study was carried out to identify common causes of these and to highlight priority areas for improvement of weld quality in industry. Cases were assessed from within HSE’s historical investigations...

I first wrote about this API 510 requirement in July 2019, and now OSHA seems to have caught on to this requirement; this year, they issued their first Citation against this requirement. Of course, the citation was related to a PSM-covered process. Here is the API 510 requirement for newly installed pressure vessels and the OSHA citation resulting from failing to perform these “pre-use”...