Fontarome Chemical Inc. has been slapped with 17 serious safety violations following a fire at the company’s pharmaceutical manufacturing facility because, according to George Yoksas, OSHA’s Milwaukee area director, “it is clear that Fontarome Chemical failed to create safety procedures, much less train employees or review procedures to ensure their effectiveness, as is necessary for these kinds of operations.” The fire occurred while employees were troubleshooting an electrical component on the hot oil heater. Violations include failure to address hazards related to potential engineering and administrative control failures, failure to implement written operating procedures, failure to review and certify operating procedures annually, failure to train workers on the procedures, failure develop emergency procedures for the shutdown of process equipment or to address deviations from normal operating limits, failure to validate management of change procedures, failure to conduct a compliance audit at least every three years and failure to respond to deficiencies found in compliance audits. Furthermore, serious violations were found in their faiure to develop machine-specific procedures for locking and tagging out energy sources, failure to perform periodic inspections of machinery, failure to guard machines appropriately, failure to require workers to wear insulating gloves and fire-retardant clothing when working on energized circuits, and failure to conduct an arc flash hazard analysis.
In short, it is a very, very fortunate thing that all they are facing is $51,200 in penalties at this juncture, and not deaths or serious physical injury from having employees work on live equipment that handles hazardous and flammable chemicals without any safety procedures or protective equipment at all.