Barge facility fined more than $220,000 after two workers are killed in fire

OSHA fined Texas Barge & Boat Inc. $221,200 and cited the company for 40 violations following the death of two workers killed in a fire inside a confined space at the company’s facility in Freeport, Texas. OSHA initiated its inspection following a report from the local sheriff’s department that an explosion had occurred and two workers were unaccounted for. Nine employees were performing cutting operations and fire watch operations in a confined space, between the cargo hold and the bottom plate of a vessel, when the flash fire occurred. OSHA found that the company showed a willful disregard for the law’s requirement or plain indifference to employee safety and health by failing to conduct air monitoring tests prior to employees entering the confined and enclosed spaces to perform oxygen and fuel gas cutting operations. 

OSHA cites grain handling facility for multiple Confined Space violations

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=21582

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