OSHA proposes $721K fine for Wis. grain company, warns industry after series of accidents

OSHA proposes $721K fine for Wis. grain company

MILWAUKEE — A federal safety agency proposed fines of $721,000 on Wednesday for a Wisconsin grain company where a worker was buried up to his chest by frozen soybeans for four hours. The employee survived the accident.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration also sent a caution letter to grain-elevator operators across the nation, citing a string of similar accidents that led to four deaths and at least one injury in about a year.

OSHA said the accident at Cooperative Plus Inc. in February left a worker trapped in 25-degree weather for several hours before he was rescued. He was hospitalized briefly for hypothermia but was able to return to work the next day, OSHA said.

“He literally came within inches of dying,” agency spokesman David Michaels said. “He had a cell phone in his hand so he was able to summon help.”

OSHA cited the Burlington company for 10 violations alleging that it failed to provide proper safeguards to employees working in large storage bins.

The company, which has 15 days to comply or contest the findings, declined to comment on the citations until executives could consider them fully.

“We care deeply about our employees’ safety and health, on and off the job,” the company said in a statement. “If we need to make changes to protect their safety and health in the workplace further, we will do so.”

The accident was one of several nationwide since last year. They generally occurred when moving grain acted like quicksand to workers standing on it, or when cascades of falling grain created suction that pulled in and trapped a worker, according to the OSHA letter.

“It is your responsibility to prevent your workers from dying in grain storage facilities,” the letter said.

The most recent accident happened last week at Haasbach LLC in Mount Carroll in northwestern Illinois. Two teenage workers were in the half-full bin, which can hold 500,000 bushels of shelled corn, when they became engulfed and suffocated.

“This was very preventable,” OSHA spokesman Scott Allen said. “There are OSHA regulations that should have been followed and it appears they were not.”

OSHA reiterated in its letter that employers must:

— Prohibit workers from clearing clogs by standing or walking on the grain.

— Provide a properly secured body harness and safety line to all employees working inside a bin.

— Station an observer outside the bin whose sole task is to continuously track the employee inside.

— Test air inside a bin or silo prior to entry to ensure there is sufficient oxygen and no buildup of combustible or toxic gases.

Companies that don’t comply face fines and possible criminal charges, OSHA said.

The safety agency had fined Tempel Grain Elevators LLP more than $1.5 million following the May 2009 suffocation of a teenage worker at the company’s Haswell, Colo. grain-storage operation.

This summer it also fined the South Dakota Wheat Growers Association of Aberdeen, S.D. more than $1.6 million after one worker suffocated in a bin accident. Five other workers were put at risk of being engulfed themselves when they were sent to dig the victim out, OSHA said.

Online:

OSHA: www.osha.gov/

Cooperative Plus: www.cooperativeplus.com/

Dinesh Ramde can be reached at dramde(at)ap.org.