Photo by Tom Hindman, Charleston Daily Mail, via AP.

We’ve got the story in today’s Gazette that Bayer CropScience has agreed to pay OSHA fines of $143,000 related to the 2008 explosion and fire that killed two workers at the company’s Institute chemical plant.

That’s the same as the original amount that OSHA fined Bayer following its investigation of the Aug. 28, 2008, incident in the Institute plant Methomyl unit.

But, OSHA agreed to reclassify one of the two “repeat” citations issued to Bayer as a “serious” citation, and dropped four of the other serious citations. For those who want to take a closer look, we’ve got the original citations posted here and the settlement document from OSHA posted here.

In the other most recent case involving deaths at the Institute plant, OSHA in August 1996 settled a case that originally had a $1.59 million fine attached to it for $700,000, and dropped 11 of the original 27 citations, including 10 that had been listed as “willful” by OSHA inspectors.

Bayer issued a press release this morning that included these quotes from Institute plant manager Steve Hedrick:

We have cooperated fully with OSHA during its investigation of this accident. We also have worked with OSHA to resolve the citations and have implemented changes that already address several of the process safety issues raised by the agency.

We share with OSHA the objective of improving the safety of our workplace. The Institute Industrial Park’s highest priority is the safety of our employees and the community.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 10:22 am and is filed under Chemical industry, Environment, Worker safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.