The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has handed down fines for last spring's massive fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas—but OSHA itself can't publicize that, thanks to the government shutdown. The fines to the West Fertilizer Co. total $118,300 for 24 violations, according to a somewhat surprising messenger:
OSHA’s fines and violations were announced Thursday morning by Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate’s environment and public works committee. Boxer, a California Democrat, said OSHA couldn’t publicize the findings itself because of the federal government’s ongoing partial shutdown.
“So I’m stepping in here so as a result of my telling you these things, another explosion could be prevented,” Boxer said.
Boxer said OSHA found that West Fertilizer Co. failed to train and license its forklift operators, didn’t pressure test replacement hoses on chemical tanks, had inadequate relief valves, did not have an emergency response plan and also didn’t have required fire extinguishers.
The investigation is not done, though, and the shutdown will likely delay its completion. The shutdown also means that other workplaces are going without inspection, possibly developing the kinds of hazards that led to the explosion that flattened much of the town of West nearly three decades after the fertilizer plant's last OSHA inspection. It would take OSHA
137 years to inspect all Texas jobsites at current staffing levels.