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Well they have only had since 2005 to fix their safety problems at the BP Texas City refinery. Yes it was 2005 when 15 people were killed and 170 people were injured at the BP refinery in Texas City.

The fine at that time was the record breaker of $26,000,000.00 and now OSHA has charged them with an extra $87 million in fines because they have still not fixed the safety problems at the refinery.

Well you say what is the problem? Could it possibly be that their pants are too big for their butt. Yes that is what I said; a huge corporation that can’t handle the requirements of staying in business.

Back in the day, when I worked at a chemical factory our Company President said that we did not have a right to operate; we have the privilege to operate and that privilege is given to us by the citizens of our nation.

I think that BP is a great company that needs to step back and regroup and rethink their priorities at their factories. First of all it is absolutely mandated that the company make a safe place for the employees to work. It is also very important for the company to take care of their most valuable asset, their employees.

Since this is a refinery where millions of gallons of chemicals are processed every day so we also have the environment to worry about. The one thing that separates America from the rest of the world is that we have rules and regulations that are actually enforced. Wow what an original idea, I wish I had thought of that.

Most (most but not all) Americans go about basically following the rule of law every day. If this were not true it would be utter chaos. Other countries just talk about it and go ahead and do what they want. Thus the chaos that we see around the globe.

Maybe these guys think like our Congressmen, Senators and President, they can just make up their own rules (laws) no matter whether they make sense or not. Then if it don’t work out they just blame the other political party. The difference is that OSHA is an federal agency that wants to to what is right.

These are professional men and women who see a wrong and try to make it right. These dedicated employees try their very best to understand and have patience, but when it is needed they can become the guardian angel of the worker in America and carry a big stick.

Can you imagine how many rules BP must have broken for OSHA to inflect this huge amount of fines? I would think that they have lost their privilege to operate don’t you?

What could they be thinking? Do they still want to do business? Do they give a rip at all about their employees? Or are their pants just to big.

My advice, BP you need to go back to the drawing board and rethink your way of business and maybe just maybe you need to down size your pants.

Just my opinion

Joe

Should we be using band aid fixes to repair our infrastructure in America?

I think that most people this morning in San Francisco and Oakland would say no after a 5,000 pound piece of steel fell onto the lower deck of the bridge yesterday.

There were only two cars that hit the piece of steel and no one was injured. The real miracle was that no one was killed during the incident.

After the bridge was closed it took hours to clear the vehicles trapped on the bridge. This is one area of the country that really needs to think about new bridge construction or mass transit to transport people from one side of the bay to the other.

Think about it, the bridge is 73 years old for heavens sake. After this many years of continuous use by the public the old girl has just about served her time.

This however is only the tip of the ice burg when it comes to our infrastructure problems in America.

Road conditions are far better now than they were before the Interstate Highway System was begun by President Eisenhower. I have read that when President Eisenhower drove across the country in 1918 it took 73 days for the trip and in places there were only dirt trails with washed out bridges.

The kicker here is that it’s no longer 1918 and the millions of cars on the road demand that our infrastructure accommodate them.

I personally think that we should demand that public transportation be made more available so the need for these vehicles are limited. This would provide many more jobs than the car factories and maybe even help our environment which we are destroying for our grand children.

Can our government handle this? I am not so sure, it almost seems that we have been taken over by people who want to give away everything that we have worked so hard for since the Revolutionary War.

Should everything be free? If so we would all starve to death because sooner or later the farmers would catch the on and refuse to work.

No it is going to cost us big time to rebuild the infrastructure of this country and we will all have to go to work. Those who are good for nothing except to drain the system of it’s resources should pick up their cheese, corn meal and flour from the local food bank for free.

What we should not allow to happen is make it possible for those who refuse to work to be able to spend any of the governments money on any type of luxury food item, wine or etc. What is our country coming to when we have good for nothings and drug heads laying around just having babies. Wow and what do we do about those innocents, we need divine intervention.

Oh well I guess I always get a little worked up, but we have a lot of work to do to our wonderful country and it is about time that we have some leadership with their heads screwed on correctly to get started. Oh for another Dwight David Eisenhower.

Just my opinion.

Joe

I just received an email from the Red Cross about how to prevent spread of Influenza and viruses in the work place and it was very informative. If we could only get employees to wrap their minds around this we would be very blessed.

I haven’t checked it out yet but last year OSHA was working on guidance for the private sector and government employees with recommendations and methods of preventing the spread of pandemics in the workplace.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace for their employees. OSHA’s role is to promote the safety and health of America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach, and education; establishing partnerships; and encouraging continual process improvement in workplace safety and health. For more information, visit www.osha.gov.

What do you think the possibilities are that we will have an Influenza Pandemic?  Is this something that every employer should be prepared for?

I realize it did happen in 1918 and many thousand people died, but that has been 91 years ago. I also realize that we are much more advanced in medicine than we were in 1918. However I do think that we should have some guidance on what to do and how to control the spread of this if it were to actually happen. However I don’t think we should panic we should just be educated and plan actions just in case it did.

Does anyone remember the steps we all took as we approached the year 2000? I remember the steps that we took and it was all very unnecessary because there was no problem with the computers after all the hubbub was over.

What I think of when I think about this is what are the possibilities that an Influenza Pandemic is going to happen and what will the work place have to deal with if it does.

I think that we deal with realities that actually have a possibility of happening. One example is that if you live in Tornado Alley, like my company does, you should have a tornado emergency plan, which we do and have used it.

Maybe we should have an Influenza Pandemic plan but I think it is crazy to stockpile respirators and face masks. Just tell the people not to come to work if they are sick, period. That is where we then have to depend upon our medical experts to advise us on exactly what we should do to defeat the spread of any such pandemic.

Just my opinion.

Joe Russell

Hydrogen Sulfite now there is a chemical that I have never heard anything about. Yet a worker was fatally exposed to this chemical at a local factory last December.

Just today OSHA officially cited this company for safety violations. A total of $74,000 in penalties is the fine for these violations brought out as a result of investigations into safety at this company.

The problem I see here, whether the company ends up having to pay this fine or not, a worker is still dead as a result of an accident which could have been prevented with proper equipment and training.

As per the OSHA web site “The agency is proposing a repeat violation with a $12,500 penalty after it found the process vessels not properly labeled. The company has been cited for a similar violation following a 2007 inspection at its sister plant”.

The company is also being cited for 13 serious violations with proposed penalties of $61,500. Serious violations include failure to install hydrogen sulfite monitors and a lack of training for employees who handle hazardous chemicals which were related to the fatality. Additionally, deficiencies were found with regard to respiratory protection, confined space and lockout / tagout programs. A serious citation is issued when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.

It seems to me that after numerous violations in the past that at some point the company would learn from past experience and get their act together. It is horrible that someone has to die before companies are able to see past an initial cost of equipment and training and try to keep their employees safe.

The question in my mind is at what point do we put a stop to a runaway company that is oblivious to the laws of the land and put some of their management/owners in jail for manslaughter.

I know that there are times when employees simply refuse to take safety precautions and there is little that management can do about those abuses. However when a company continues to clearly disobey the law and expose there employees to hazards that are known to cause death and serious injury something must be done.

As OSHA states on their website “OSHA’s mission is to assure the safety and health of America’s working men and women by preventing injuries, illnesses and fatalities. OSHA operates a vigorous enforcement program, conducting almost 39,000 inspections and finding nearly 88,000 violations of its standards and regulations in fiscal year 2008.”

My response to this is GO OSHA. Do what is necessary to protect workers from lousy employers who could care less for their employees safety.

Just my opinion, but I am allowed that now aren’t I?

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Delek Refining Ltd. in Tyler with one alleged willful and 29 alleged serious violations after a fire and explosion claimed the lives of two workers and injured three others.

The total fines that OSHA has assessed on the company is $217,000.00 and in my opinion that is nothing to sneeze at. In my humble opinion that is precisely what OSHA has to do in order to get companies to comply with the law. Otherwise they will just consider this part of business and go on and continue to operate in an unsafe way.

The worker in this country has a voice and I think this voice is OSHA. Someone has to keep an eye on companies who operate in this country to keep our workers safe and in my opinion OSHA does a fair job at what they do. One thing however that would make it easier is to be better funded by the United States Government.

The Process Safety Management standard, from OSHA, contains specific requirements which are essential to the safety and health of workers in the petroleum refining industry, and it is crucial that employers follow these safety and health requirements. OSHA’s director believes that if this had been done in this case, lives may have been saved.

Serious citations are issued by OSHA when death or serious injury could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known and there were 29 of these violations. In this case they were in violation of OSHA Process Safety Management standards including electrical, benzene, asbestos and portable fire extinguisher standards.

In this accident Flammable vapors were ignited after a Naphtha, which is a flammable liquid, discharge line ruptured, killing two workers and injuring three others. The investigation found a willful violation since they failed to adequately maintain and repair the processing equipment. In OSHA terms a a willful violation is one that is committed with intentional disregard of, or plain indifference to, the requirements of the OSHA Standard.

Why do companies continue to violate standards is beyond our comprehension since it is a known fact that if standards are broken people may die. So that you may know that this is not a new thing take a look at the following link and read this article that happened in 1922.

Radium Girls After you read this article you will understand this question “What are the limits of the human heart for evil”.

Thanks and for goodness sake do what is right.

Joe Russell