Safety often trumped by budgets and numbers
Many of the letter writers this week echo how we at the NEWS
feel about the only regulation-length pool closing here. Be sure to turn to page C6 for additional comments.
It’s sad and has a profound impact on our high school and club teams, the athletic club’s swim lessons and exercise programs, as well as seniors who find pool exercise their only alternative to keeping fit.
Team Fitness representatives will layout in detail the big hurdle in keeping the pool operational at a community meeting today and this evening (see front page story).
Meanwhile, what weighs heavily are the tragedies that rocked the communities of Anacortes and West Virginia this past two weeks. An explosion killed five people and seriously burned two other victims at Tesoro Refinery in Anacortes, while 29 others were killed in a separate explosion at the Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Ranch coalmine in the southern state of West Virginia.
The two tragic incidents, though many states apart, have similarities. Both companies appear to have downgraded safety in favor of production and were driven by budgets and numbers.
Mines and refineries are hostile environments that still require human workers over robotics. Safety should be paramount. However, in both cases, business decisions look to have trumped safety.
According to Labor and Industries (L & I), Tesoro was charged with 17 “serious” safety and health violations (classified as injury or death) during an inspection last March with penalties that totaled $87,700.
Rather than addressing the problems, which could have meant temporarily shutting down production of the refinery, Tesoro appealed the citations. The appeal process can take years to settle.
L & I agreed to forgive 14 of the citations and reduce the fine last November in order to address the most serious hazards found at the refinery. Terms of the agreement allowed Tesoro to hire a third party consultant to verify the identified safety violations. The consultant had just begun its safety assessment last month, with a report not due until September when the fatal explosion occurred.
In the case of Massey Energy Co., inspectors with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration discovered 68 instances of “high negligence” at the Upper Big Ranch mine in the past year alone, along with three cases of “reckless disregard.”
Too routinely, safety citations issued to U.S. coalmines are appealed to the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, which is currently backlogged with about 16,000 cases to be reviewed.
Egregious violations can circulate within the system for years, rather than the commonsense alternative of making a fix to protect lives.
Meanwhile, workers at both refineries and mines are forced to trust that their employers are making the dangerous environment they are entering as hospitable as possible given the nature of the industry.
When those environments turn deadly, families are left to deal with the sudden loss of not just a mother, father, son or daughter, but in many situations, the main wage earner in a household.
Companies are left without the expertise of that employee, and communities are left to wonder why?
– Kelly Ruhoff
Editor
