Cal-OSHA Cites Chevron in Fatal Refinery Accident

State officials have charged Chevron USA Inc. with serious safety violations in connection with the death last August of a worker at the company’s El Segundo refinery.

The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration is alleging that unsafe equipment helped cause a 13-ton bundle of steel pipes to shift, pinning Michael J. McKenna against a wall in a refinery maintenance area.

The agency has issued three citations. Two of them allege serious violations of worker safety regulations but carry a total of only $750 in fines. The third allegation, which concerns labeling of controls on a crane, carries no fine.

Chevron has appealed the case so it can meet with Cal-OSHA officials to discuss the more serious allegations, according to a Chevron official.

“If we did absolutely nothing, we’d forfeit our right to have a conference,” said Hal Day, senior safety engineer at the refinery. Depending on the outcome of the conference, Day said, the company may decide to pursue its appeal.

McKenna, a 26-year-old Hermosa Beach resident, was fatally injured on Aug. 7, 1989, as a heat exchanger core, a three-foot diameter bundle of 15-foot-long tubes, was being prepared for removal from atop two metal cylinders.

The unit apparently slipped off the cylinders, crushing McKenna. Paramedics treated McKenna for massive internal injuries, but he was dead on arrival at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.

Day said Chevron wants a conference with Cal-OSHA officials to learn the details of the agency’s charges--one of which, he said, concerns an alleged failure by Chevron to keep its equipment in safe operating condition.

Bill Siener, manager of Cal-OSHA’s Los Angeles district office, declined to discuss details of the case until his staff had met with Chevron officials.