Arco Unit to Pay Record $3.48-Million in Fines : Energy: The penalties are for safety violations cited after an explosion and fire that killed 17 workers at a Texas plant.
Arco Chemical Co. agreed Thursday to pay a record $3.48 million in fines to the federal government for safety violations cited after a massive explosion at its Channelview, Tex., plant last July killed 17 people and sent a huge ball of flames shooting 200 feet into the night sky.
Under terms of the agreement, the subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Atlantic Richfield Co. will also take measures to ensure workplace safety at the plant as well as three other company facilities.
But while the settlement set a record for penalties paid to the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a chemical workers union spokesman called the fine “too little too late.”
Rod Rogers, the spokesman for the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union, said Thursday that such a fine would barely make a dent in company profit, even as chemical companies continue what has long been decried by the union as unsafe practices. He cited among these the use of unskilled contract labor and the haphazard maintenance of equipment.
“They didn’t have to have 17 people die before they (corrected) these things,” Rogers said.
In announcing the settlement, OSHA cited 347 “willful violations”--defined as those committed with an intentional disregard for, or indifference to, the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Of the $36 million that Arco spent to rebuild the plant, $20 million was for safety equipment.
The explosion was the worst in the plant’s 13-year history. It occurred when a 900,000-gallon storage tank filled with flammable materials ignited. The ensuing explosion leveled a square-block area.
Of the 17 people who died, 12 worked for companies that provided maintenance and other services to Arco on a contract basis.
In responding to the citations, Jack Johnson, president of Arco Chemicals Americas, said the company “does not agree with all of the OSHA citations, but the company feels its interests are better served by focusing on improving workplace safety, rather than by contesting or litigating the differences it may have with OSHA.”
The agreement comes only a month after OSHA set another record for safety violation fines. USX Corp. agreed to pay $3.25 million last month for violations at two steel plants in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Phillips Petroleum Co. is contesting $5.6 million in recommended OSHA fines for violations found after a 1989 explosion and fire a short distance from the Arco facility. In that accident, 23 people were killed and 130 others were injured.
The Arco accident occurred late in the evening of July 5, as workers were re-installing a vent compressor on the side of the 40-foot storage tank. The explosion blew off the tank’s 48,000-pound top, sending it into a parking lot 200 yards away. Both Arco and OSHA concluded that the explosion was caused by a buildup of oxygen in the top of the tank, which was then ignited by a spark from some source.
OSHA officials said a vent gauge had malfunctioned, giving an improper reading of oxygen and hydrocarbons in the tank. Workers had no way of knowing that the levels were becoming dangerously high as they performed maintenance on the equipment. A separate report submitted by Arco speculated that a spark from something as routine as the start-up of a compressor may have ignited the explosion.
Arco’s Channelview plant produces propylene oxide, which is used to make such products as seat cushions, bedding and cleaning compounds. It also produces styrene monomer, used for insulation, auto parts, foam drinking cups and other packaging materials.
