Tagged as Combustible Dust

The New York Times
by Shaila Dewan

ATLANTA — A huge fire last year at a sugar refinery near Savannah, Ga., that killed 14 workers and injured 36 more was “entirely preventable,” a federal official said Thursday as the results of an investigation into the fire’s causes were released.

The owner of the plant, the Imperial Sugar Company, and the plant’s managers knew for decades about the hazards of sugar dust but failed to take the necessary precautions, according to the report, issued by the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates industrial chemical accidents.

The report blamed inadequate equipment design, poor maintenance and ineffective housekeeping for the explosion and fire in February 2008, and said that Imperial Sugar and the sugar industry as a whole were aware of the dangers of dust explosions at least as early as 1925.

In a written statement, John C. Sheptor, the president and chief executive of Imperial Sugar, said the company had “collaborated” with the safety board on the report and was “working diligently” to put in place the report’s safety recommendations.

The report also cited internal memorandums at the plant, in Port Wentworth, Ga., dating from 1967, before it was owned by Imperial Sugar, showing that managers were concerned about the possibility that accumulations of sugar dust could ignite a chain of explosions that would destroy “large sections of the plant.”

The initial explosion most likely occurred inside a sugar conveyor situated beneath two silos, the report said.

The conveyor had recently been enclosed, creating “a confined, unventilated space where sugar dust could accumulate to an explosive concentration,” the safety board said.

That explosion quickly spread, igniting sugar dust and spilled sugar in adjacent areas.

Imperial Sugar had not conducted evacuation drills and the explosion and fires disabled most emergency lighting, trapping workers in a dark maze of corridors, the report said.

The Chemical Safety Board does not issue citations or levy fines, but in July 2008, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration found violations at the Port Wentworth plant and at an Imperial Sugar plant in Gramercy, La., where an inspection five weeks after the Georgia fire found sugar dust four feet thick in some areas.

The agency proposed fines of $8.7 million, the third-largest in the agency’s history. Imperial Sugar is contesting the fine.

Brent J. Savage, a lawyer in Savannah who is representing some of the victims or family members of victims in lawsuits against the plant, said the report reinforced their case and cast new suspicion on insurers and other third-party inspectors, who the report said failed to make note of accumulations of sugar dust at the plant.

The first of his clients whose case is going to trial is Paul Seckinger, a mechanic who was badly burned and who, Mr. Savage said, has incurred more than $8 million in medical bills.

“They did an unbelievably in-depth study and they had access to things that a typical plaintiff’s lawyer would not,” Mr. Savage said of the safety board.

Savannah Daily News/The Business Report & Journal
by TBR Staff Report

The US Chemical Safety Board traveled to Savannah today to release its preliminary report on the Feb, 7, 2008 explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth. Tonight, at 6:30 p.m, the public will have a chance to ask questions of the board before the “final” report is voted on this evening.

Unions representing food processing employees in manufacturing plants around the U.S., including a number of Imperial Sugar and Domino Sugar workers, immediately charged that the CSB had failed workers by not calling for “immediate, emergency changes in OSHA procedures to protect workers,” according to Evan Yeats, spokesperson for the UFCW – United Food and Commercial Workers International – which presents workers in U.S. and Canadian food processing plants.

Congressman John Barrow (D), who represents Savannah and Port Wentworth, also released a statement today: “Given the continued threat of combustible dust explosions and fires, this report makes clear why we need a temporary standard to prevent tragedies like the one we had at Imperial Sugar. I commend the Department of Labor for the steps they’ve taken to get permanent rules governing combustible dust on the books, but the hard reality is that it could be years at best before those regulations are in place. Meanwhile, the risk of another combustible dust explosion or fire still exists. It’s clear that we need to move forward on the bill that Congressman Miller and I reintroduced this year to get an emergency temporary standard in place as soon as possible. People’s lives are at stake, and we can’t afford the time it will take for a permanent standard to work its way through the bureaucracy for things to change. I hope that Georgia’s senators will join me in making sure that our bill gets passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law as quickly as possible. If we can prevent another community from going through what we did, we must.”

There were few surprises in the CSB’s report from preliminary information that was disclosed during public hearings this year. The explosion resulted from ongoing releases of sugar from inadequately designed and maintained dust collection equipment, conveyors and sugar handling equipment. Further, the CSB concluded that inadequate housekeeping practices allowed highly combustible sugar dust and granulated sugar to build up throughout the refinery’s packing buildings.

The first explosion – known as a “primary event” – “likely occurred inside a sugar conveyor located beneath two large sugar storage silos. The conveyor had recently been enclosed with steel panels creating a confined, unventilated space where sugar dust could accumulate to an explosive concentration. Sugar dust inside the enclosed conveyor was likely ignited by an overheated bearing, causing an explosion that traveled into the adjacent packing buildings, dislodging sugar dust accumulations and spilled sugar located on equipment, floors, and other horizontal surfaces,” according to today’s report.

“The result was a powerful cascade of secondary dust explosions that fatally injured 14 workers and injured 36 others,” it said.

The final report and proposed safety recommendations will be considered for approval by the CSB board members at a public meeting tonight in Savannah, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Hilton Savannah Desoto hotel, located at 15 East Liberty Street. The meeting will include a public comment period.

The CSB also today released a four-minute computer animation depicting the sequence of events that led to the accident. The 3-D animation will be included in a CSB safety video on the Imperial disaster that will be issued shortly after the final report is approved and will be available on the agency Web site, www.CSB.gov.

CSB Investigation Supervisor John Vorderbrueggen, P.E., who led the 19-month investigation, said, “Imperial’s management as well as the managers at the Port Wentworth refinery did not take effective actions over many years to control dust explosion hazards – even as smaller fires and explosions continued to occur at their plants and other sugar facilities around the country.”

The hazard of dust explosions in such plants was well known to the plant executives, said the CSB. “Internal correspondence dating from 1967 showed that Port Wentworth refinery managers were seriously concerned about the possibility of a sugar dust explosion that could “travel from one area to another, wrecking large sections of a plant.”

CSB Chairman John Bresland said, “I call upon the sugar industry and other industries to be alert to this serious danger.” But it is that policing of itself that has unions upset this morning, after hearing the report.

“It is ludicrous for the only recommendation from the CSB to ask the trade associations of various manufacturers to police themselves. It represents no protection for workers. Since their last report last December, we have called on the CSB to insist that OSHA implement immediate, temporary measures to address this. They did not. The process of changing OSHA regulations takes years. The last time they did it in the ’70s, it took 10 years,” said Yeats.

The CSB report said the company had not conducted evacuation drills for its employees and that the explosions and fires disabled most of the emergency lighting, making it difficult for workers to escape from the labyrinth of explosion-damaged buildings as the fires continued to spread.

The final report proposes a series of safety recommendations for board consideration. Imperial Sugar was urged to comply with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recommended practices for preventing dust fires and explosions, develop dust training and housekeeping programs and improve its evacuation procedures.

The report also called on industry groups AIB International and the American Bakers Association to develop combustible dust training and auditing materials. Imperial’s insurer, Zurich Services, and an insurance industry trade association should improve their insurance audit procedures for dust hazards and share their dust hazard training materials with clients, CSB investigators concluded.

“Do you know who AIB International is?” asked Yeats today. “They are the industry group that gave the Georgia peanut plant an outstanding report card.”

The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. The agency’s board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. CSB investigations look into all aspects of chemical accidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure as well as inadequacies in safety regulations, codes, standards, management systems, training and industry practices.

The board does not issue citations or fines but does make safety recommendations to plants, industry organizations, labor groups and regulatory agencies such as OSHA and EPA.