Worker Derek Mesenbring, 31, died after he was exposed to methyl bromide at Industrial Fumigant Co., a Chicago Ridge chemical plant

Bourbonnais Man Dies From Possible Pesticide Exposure In Chicago Ridge

Chicago Ridge police and OSHA investigating chemical company after Bourbonnais man dies of possible exposure to methyl bromide.
 
By Lorraine Swanson (Patch Staff) - 

Updated Oct 26, 2017 12:26 am ET




CHICAGO RIDGE, IL -- A Bourbonnais man died after he was exposed to methyl bromide at a Chicago Ridge chemical plant. Derek Mesenbring, 31, was at work when he began feeling ill on Monday afternoon. He was taken to Palos Community Hospital, where he passed away early the next morning. An autopsy is pending at the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.

Around 4:32 p.m. Monday, Mesenbring's wife called the Chicago Ridge Police Department and asked them to check up on her husband at Industrial Fumigant Co., a company that provides pest management and sanitation solution services. Police said the wife had spoken to her husband earlier, who complained he wasn't feeling well.

When officers arrived at 6663 99th St, Chicago Ridge, they saw Mesenbring's car parked in the lot. The building was also secured. Officers were able to get into the building, where they found Mesenbring in distress, police said in a news release. The man was taken to Palos Community Hospital in Palos Hills,

The hospital went on a hazmat watch after learning that the Bourbonnais man had been exposed to insecticide. Chicago Ridge's police officers and fire personnel were sent back to the hospital for evaluations for the possible exposure to the chemical. Police said the first responders did not show any signs of toxic exposure.

Methyl bromide is an airborne toxicant. Once ventilated, it no longer poses a threat. The Chicago Ridge Fire Department ventilated the building and it returned to a safe level. Chicago Ridge police are cooperating with OSHA in an ongoing investigation.

Demolition workers without proper fire-safety training started and accidentally spread the fire that raged for several hours at an abandoned Georgia-Pacific plywood mill in south Arkansas this weekend

Fire at plywood mill blamed on errors

By Emily Walkenhorst

Posted: November 2, 2017 at 1:01 a.m.


Demolition workers without proper fire-safety training started and accidentally spread the fire that raged for several hours at an abandoned plywood mill in south Arkansas this weekend, Crossett Fire Chief Bo Higginbotham said Tuesday.

Debris from the fire, which included insulation from the mill’s roof, remained spread across parts of Crossett on Tuesday afternoon, three days after the blaze.

Crews have been picking up insulation since Saturday afternoon, said Jennifer King, a spokesman for Georgia-Pacific, which owns the mill. Much of the insulation was caught in trees and has been blown by the wind onto the ground, she said.

The fire started about 9:30 a.m. Saturday before being contained by 4 p.m. and then put out, according to a report from the Crossett Fire Department. The fire prompted a response from numerous departments, the closure of U.S. 82 and the evacuation of nearby businesses.

On Tuesday, officials ended their investigation of the cause of the fire at the mill, which has not been in operation since 2011 and was being torn down.

On Saturday morning, workers for Houston-based GSD Cos., Georgia-Pacific’s demolition contractor, were using cutting torches and ignited a pile of wood debris, Higginbotham said. They then took a 500-gallon water tank that was on site and sprayed directly at the fire, extinguishing the flames that were directly hit with the water but pushing away the flames that were not, Higginbotham said.

“Usually if you spray directly into the fire, just a straight shot, it’ll put what you hit out, but kind of like wind, it will blow the rest of away,” he said.

That spread the fire toward old mill equipment with residual hydraulic fluid on it, he said. That’s an oily fluid, which caused the fire to spread onto roof timbers, he said.

GSD officials did not return phone messages Tuesday afternoon.

King said Georgia-Pacific began its own investigation of the fire Tuesday morning and that the company was not reconsidering its partnership with GSD.

Employees were inside the mill and exposed to the flames for about a minute before they exited the building and called the Fire Department, Higginbotham said.

The workers were untrained in fire safety, Higginbotham said, which is why they did not know not to spray water directly on a fire. Management also failed to acknowledge the hazards of using torches and grinders, which spark, in a wood-frame structure, he said.

Before the fire, Higginbotham learned that GSD had shut off access to water in the facility as a part of the demolition process. He said he asked company officials to turn the water back on, but they declined. He said he was assured that workers would be able to turn the water back on in the event of an emergency, but they were not, he said.

Higginbotham did not know why they were unable to, but he said having water in the building would have reduced the severity of the accident.

“It would have put the fire out right away, because they had sprinkler systems out there,” he said.

On social media, people in the Crossett area reported having trouble breathing during the fire and seeing debris end up on their lawns.

The Crossett Fire Department warned residents the fire was toxic, which Higginbotham said was a reference to the general toxicity of all fires.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Monday that it had opened an inquiry into the fire, looking for anything that might have contaminated workers.

On Tuesday, OSHA area director Carlos Reynolds said he had asked GSD to conduct the investigation.

When asked whether companies investigating themselves was standard procedure, an OSHA spokesman referred the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to a description of work-site incident investigations on OSHA’s website.

During an investigation, a company would look at what procedures were and weren’t followed and why, according to the description. Internal investigations enable “employers and workers to identify and implement the corrective actions necessary to prevent future incidents.”

The inquiry was the result of a nonformal complaint, which in this case was OSHA officials seeing a report of the fire in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A formal complaint is when an employee reports the incident to OSHA.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent workers to the site.

The Department of Environmental Quality did not send air monitors to the site to gauge pollution because the mill was not a chemical plant, said Stuart Spencer, associate director in charge of the office of air quality.

The EPA did not return a phone message left at the agency Tuesday afternoon.

The fire prompted a response from numerous departments, the closure of U.S. 82 and the evacuation of nearby businesses.

OSHA fines Alta Construction $106,470 because it placed its employees in danger by failing to follow safe trenching practices at theParcel B/Pioneer Crossing development in Downtown Boise, ID

Contractor fined $106K for putting Downtown Boise workers in danger


By Audrey Dutton
adutton@idahostatesman.com

November 2, 2017

A construction firm hired to work on the Parcel B/Pioneer Crossing development in Downtown Boise has been cited for breaking worker safety laws.

The $65 million project spans the five acres between 11th and 13th streets and Myrtle and Front streets. It includes a 644-space parking garage and other buildings currently under construction.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Wednesday that Boise company Alta Construction placed its employees in danger by failing to follow safe trenching practices at the work site.

The company was cited with willful and serious violations of worker safety laws. OSHA is proposing a $106,470 fine. The lion’s share of the fine is for the “willful” violation.

A willful violation is when “an employer has demonstrated either an intentional disregard for the requirements of the [worker safety law] or a plain indifference to employee safety and health,” according to OSHA. The agency would not elaborate on how this incident met that definition as the citation may still be appealed.


Inspectors for the agency went out to Alta’s work site along Myrtle Avenue between 11th and 12 streets on May 3, after receiving two complaints of unsafe trenching operations. (Alta was issued a permit that day for work on the Parcel B parking garage project.) OSHA inspectors found employees working inside a 7-foot-deep trench without any cave-in protection to keep them safe if the trench collapsed.

The trench also did not have a stairway, ladder, ramp or other safe way of getting out of the trench.

“Fortunately no one was injured, but it is imperative that companies use protective systems in trenches to keep their workers safe,” local OSHA director David Kearns said.

Two men were killed and one injured after a trench collapsed in Northwest Boise last year.

“After the May 2016 trench collapse deaths, we’ve heard from many in the construction field locally who said it was a ‘wake up call’ for them,” Kearns said.

Any trench that is more than 5 feet deep is required to have cave-in protection such as a trench box.

Alta officials did not immediately respond to a message from the Idaho Statesman.

OSHA’s citation is not final. By Thursday morning, Alta had already scheduled an informal conference with OSHA to talk about the violations. Alta also may appeal OSHA’s findings to an independent review commission.

=======================

‘Woefully inadequate’ brace wasn’t in place before fatal trench collapse

By Sven Berg
sberg@idahostatesman.com

October 04, 2016 11:10 AM

Hard Rock Construction owner Dave Callister said his company provided a box to brace a trench his workers were digging May 3. 

But foreman Bert Smith Jr. removed the box shortly before the trench collapsed, Callister said, killing Smith, 36, and fellow Hard Rock employee Ernesto Saucedo, 26.
“Unfortunately, excavators get very comfortable because they do thousands of trenches that never move,” Callister said Tuesday, lamenting the resulting “complacency.”

Keeping the box in place may not have helped, however. A trench box investigators found at the dig site measured about 4 feet by 5 feet — “woefully inadequate” for the 9- to 11-foot-deep trench, said Dave Kearns, director of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s local office. OSHA released its investigation results Tuesday, citing Hard Rock for failing to provide required cave-in protection and a ladder for its workers.

“They basically turned over the safety and health to their foremen out there on the jobs. They basically were not exercising any care to get out and determine or identify what was going on at the jobs or to ensure the safety and health of their workers. ... And that is not sufficient,” Kearns said. “These guys, like so many companies, are not bad people. They just made a critically significant mistake by not taking extra steps to protect their workers. And, unfortunately, the ultimate price was paid.”

I would gladly pay the entire OSHA fine. I would sell my car, mortgage my house — whatever it took — if they would give that money to the families who suffered because of this tragedy.

Hard Rock Construction owner Dave Callister

TRAGEDY

The collapse occurred in the late afternoon near the corner of Hill Road and Gary Lane.

A third worker was injured but survived after he was removed from the trench. Kearns said he is probably permanently disabled.

The victims were part of a crew for Hard Rock, which is based in Meridian. They were digging a trench for a sewer line that would connect to four future homes on the southeast corner of those roads.

A photograph Smith took shortly before the collapse shows three workers in the trench without any cave-in protection, Kearns said. The photo also shows Rob Haddock, part owner of Hard Rock, standing next to the trench, he said. Kearns declined to release the photo to the Idaho Statesman.

OSHA has also cited the company for not properly training its employees on the hazards of working in trenches and not ensuring a qualified expert was inspecting the trenches to make sure proper safety measures were being followed. The agency proposed fines totaling $77,319.

‘I WASN’T SURPRISED’

News of the tragedy shocked excavation crews around the Treasure Valley. Angel Perez, a foreman for Wood Brothers Trucking and Construction in Boise, said he knew the man who survived the collapse. 

“When I went to see him, I was almost tearing up,” he said.
Perez said he wasn’t surprised the collapse happened, “but I was surprised at how long it took.” 

He said he worked for Hard Rock between the early 2000s and 2011. He said he quit, in part, because Callister often refused to provide safety measures such as trench boxes.

“He didn’t want to rent them,” Perez said. “He’s like, ‘Oh, just get it done quick and then just move on.’ Or where we would get deep into a water table, he didn’t want to rent pumps to pump water out and work safely.”

Right away, I put on the schedule: ‘Meeting. Mandatory meeting. Safety meeting, 8 a.m.’ And everybody was here. 

Angel Perez, foreman for Wood Brothers Construction

Callister, who was a financial partner in Hard Rock when Perez worked there but didn’t oversee operations at that point, said that accusation is “grossly inaccurate.” He said Hard Rock did own trench boxes and water pumps. Perez, he said, left the company under bad terms after violating a non-compete agreement.

“What you’ve got is a guy who’s got an axe to grind,” Callister said. “His comments are not based on our policies.”

Callister said he wasn’t at the trench site when it collapsed, but he showed up shortly afterward. 

“It's just a stunning loss,” he said.

I feel tremendously responsible. It hit all of us, because obviously, the first thing we think of is, 'What could we have done different?' That's what haunts anybody when a tragedy occurs.

Hard Rock Construction owner Dave Callister

AFTERMATH

Callister said his company is in regular contact with the worker who survived and Smith’s wife.

“We’re greatly concerned about her,” he said. “She has a tremendous burden. She’s with child. She’s not that far from giving birth. The workers comp hasn’t settled with her, which makes me furious. And we’ve been supporting her and taking care of her.”

Kearns said Hard Rock’s fine amount is unusually high because OSHA investigators classified the failure to provide adequate protection as “willful.” That means Hard Rock was either “plainly indifferent” or showed “intentional disregard” for their workers’ safety, Kearns said. 

Hard Rock has three weeks to pay its fines, ask for an informal conference to reduce its penalties or appeal the citation to a judge, Kearns said.

The agency soon will turn over its findings to the U.S. Attorney’s Office as it does in cases that involve willful violations that lead to deaths, he said. But criminal charges are against negligent companies are rare, and OSHA has no control over licensing. 

“We don't have the ability to ever shut down a business,” he said. “It basically requires a court order from a judge to stop any business activities.”

Callister said none of the victims nor family members have filed a legal claim against his company.

General contractor ESI put on the fall prevention training workshop with OSHA for a group of 200 to 300 ESI construction workers and ESI subcontractors in Boise, Idaho. The hour-long training included demonstrations about workplace falls and how life-threatening those falls can be.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article105865477.html#storylink=cpy

OSHA cites companies for safety violations in NJ, PA, NY, VA and HI: Mane Concept, Inc., Ski Masonry LLC, Acme Parts Inc., Lucas Tree Experts, Hawaiian Ice company fined almost $800,000 for safety violations

Company Cited after Inspection Finds Hazards Remain at New Jersey Warehouse

OSHA conducted an inspection of Mane Concept Inc., after receiving a complaint of imminent safety hazards. Inspectors found that the Moonachie, N.J., hair distribution company failed to keep exit routes unobstructed, improperly used work space around an electrical box for storage, and did not properly store materials to prevent struck-by hazards. OSHA issued one repeat, one serious, and two willful violations, and proposed penalties totaling $181,280. The company was cited in February for similar violations. Read the news release for more information.

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Pennsylvania Contractor Cited after Hazards Lead to Fatal Electrocution

A Pittsburgh masonry contractor has been cited for exposing workers to serious dangers after a laborer was electrocuted while doing residential restoration work. Following an investigation of the incident, OSHA issued citations to Ski Masonry LLC for allowing employees to work within 10 feet of overhead, energized, and uninsulated electrical lines; failing to provide fall protection; and using scaffolding without a secure base plate. Proposed penalties are $201,354. See the new release for more information.

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OSHA and New York Manufacturer Reach Settlement to Improve Safety and Health

OSHA has reached a settlement agreement with Acme Parts Inc. to improve workplace safety and health at the company’s facility in Brooklyn. OSHA found high levels of lead throughout the facility presenting serious hazards to employees. Under the terms of the agreement, Acme Parts will pay $40,000 in penalties. Additionally, the company will hire a qualified lead hazards and abatement consultant to evaluate the facility and to recommend improved practices. For more information, see the news release.

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Virginia Cites Tree Company for Safety Violations after Worker Fatality

The Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Program issued six citations and $100,270 in penalties to Lucas Tree Experts in Chesapeake for safety violations after a worker was electrocuted while trimming a tree near powerlines. Inspectors determined that the company failed to: provide personal protective equipment; follow requirements on line clearance and proximity to energized lines; and ensure workers were properly secured to trees with climbing and position ropes.

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Hawaii Cites Company for Safety and Health Violations after Ammonia Release

The Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health Division issued 14 citations and $107,800 in penalties to Hawaiian Ice Company in Honolulu for exposing workers to inhalation hazards resulting from an uncontrolled release of anhydrous ammonia. Inspectors concluded that the company lacked procedures to isolate the chemical while workers were servicing refrigeration equipment. The company also failed to conduct in-house inspections, provide portable monitoring devices to detect leaks, and train workers.

A massive water main break flooded streets and forced the evacuation of about 50 residents at Crown Heights in Brooklyn, NYC

Water was shooting into the air for more than three hours after the pipe broke at about 4:30 a.m. outside 1520 Pacific St., between Albany and Kingston avenues

CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn (WABC) -- A large water main break flooded streets and forced the evacuation of about 50 residents in Brooklyn Thursday morning.

Water was sent shooting into the air from the 40-inch main, which broke on Pacific Street in Crown Heights at around 4:40 a.m.

The residents were evacuated from two apartment buildings at 1526 Pacific Street and 180 Albany Avenue, both adjacent to the break.

They were being sheltered by the Red Cross.





There are no reports of injuries.


Workers were forced to shut multiple valves feeding the mains to drop the water pressure.

The city DEP has shut off the impacted water main.

The MTA has two buses on the scene that are being used as temporary shelter for the evacuated residents.

The following street closures remain in place:

--Albany Ave is closed to vehicle traffic from Atlantic Avenue to Dean Street.
--Pacific Street is closed to vehicle traffic from Albany Avenue to Brooklyn Avenue.
--The eastbound lane of Atlantic Avenue is being rerouted to the middle lane due to a flooding condition in that lane between Brooklyn Avenue and Albany Avenue.





=====================


Water main break in Crown Heights floods street, forces evacuations, officials say

By Nicole Brown nicole.brown@amny.com
November 2, 2017

A water main break flooded a Crown Heights street early Thursday morning, forcing dozens to evacuate, officials said.

Water was shooting into the air for more than three hours after the pipe broke at about 4:30 a.m. outside 1520 Pacific St., between Albany and Kingston avenues, the FDNY said. The water was shut off and the leak stopped shortly after 8 a.m., a spokesman said.

The flooding closed Pacific Street from Albany to Brooklyn avenues and Albany Avenue from Dean Street to Atlantic Avenue, the Office of Emergency Management said.

B15 and B43 buses were detoured in both directions and B65 buses were running with delays as a result, the MTA said.

Videos and photos posted to Twitter showed the water spraying several feet into the air.
The cause of the break was not immediately clear.   However, NYC has one of the oldest water infrastructures in the United States.  The recent rainfall could be a factor too, as the rushing flash floods may have undermined the water pipes.

The Department of Environmental Protection was investigating and would make repairs, as needed.