Company fined $70K for scaffold collapse

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1231987.html

Friday, Mar. 27, 2009

By MARGARET BAKER - [e-mail]

JACKSON COUNTY — Officials with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have imposed more than $70,000 in fines against a New Iberia-based contract company for safety violations related to a scaffolding collapse at Mississippi Power’s Plant Daniels in November that left one contract worker dead and six others injured.

In a statement Thursday, OSHA officials said that they were assessing a total $72,000 in fines against the industrial service company, LandCoast Insulation Inc., for three different safety violations.

The contract workers were working on scaffolding in Plant Daniel’s not-yet operational boiler house where coal would typically be used to generate power when the accident happened on Nov. 4. One worker died and six others were injured and treated at area hospitals.

OSHA imposed $63,000 of the fine against LandCoast Insulation for “substituting weaker, horizontal scaffold components in 14 locations,” showing what they called a “plain indifference” to or an “intentional disregard for employee safety and health.”

Another $9,000 in fines were imposed against the company, according to OSHA, for their use of damaged scaffolding components in the construction process and for failing to provide employees with effective training. According to OSHA officials, such citations are issued “when death or serious physical harm is likely to result from hazards about which the employer knew or should have known.”

“LandCoast Insulation’s substitution of weaker parts directly led to the structure’s collapse and one worker’s death,” Clyde Payne, OSHA’s area director in Jackson, said Thursday. “This worker died and others were injured because the company improperly constructed the scaffold.”

FULL story at link.

[aquart]

1. Did they send that one to China for repairs, too?