Tennessee Wins Federal Grant for Food Safety Center

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Tennessee is one of five states to receive a federal grant to establish an Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence.

The center will be located at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and operated in cooperation with the state Health Department.

According to the department, the new center will allow Tennessee to improve food safety and its response to outbreaks of foodborne illness.

The effort is funded by a $200,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health Commissioner John Dreyzehner said in a statement that the award recognizes the good work the state is doing to protect public health. That includes outbreak investigations and more than 70,000 annual inspections of food service facilities.

Each year, roughly 48 million Americans get sick from foodborne illnesses and 3,000 die.

 

 

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West Virginia Coal Mines Shut Down to Review Safety Following Deaths

February 22, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin on Wednesday asked coal companies to halt production for an hour to review safety procedures following the state’s fourth mining fatality in two weeks and the sixth since November.

Tomblin signed an executive order urging mine operators to hold safety talks with employees over the next 24 hours, starting Wednesday afternoon. Inspectors and mine safety officials plan to visit about 500 mines, a move supported by industry.

“We need to make sure that our mines are as safe as they possibly can be,” said Tomblin, who was joined by legislative leaders, safety officials and industry representatives.

In April 2010, after an explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 men, former Gov. Joe Manchin ordered a similar temporary stop in production. He also ordered one in 2006, after the deaths of 16 miners in the back-to-back explosions of International Coal Group’s Sago Mine and Massey’s Aracoma Coal Alma No. 1 mine.

“We just want to do everything we can to try to bring everyone’s attention and refocus and have them re-emphasize safe practices and safe conditions,” said Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association.

The request comes after John Myles, 44, a shuttle car operator from Hilltop, was struck by a scoop Tuesday night and died of his injuries. The death at Pocahontas Coal Co.’s Affinity mine near Sophia was its second this month.

Federal records show that mine has been cited for safety violations 65 times since January, for everything from failure to maintain mine and escapeway maps to allowing combustible materials to accumulate.

State inspectors had been at the Affinity mine on Monday and Tuesday, before the fatal accident, giving safety talks, according to West Virginia mine safety director Eugene White. White said the mine had only recently reopened after a fatality earlier this month.

“Obviously, we’re very concerned, having a second fatality,” said Pocahontas Coal’s corporate counsel, Jennifer Guthrie. “As far as we know, the incidents are not related.”

Pocahontas Coal is cooperating with state and federal investigators but cannot comment further, she said.

Edward L. Finney, 43, of Bluefield, Va., died Feb. 7 after a hoist moved unexpectedly as Finney was pushing a scoop bucket insert full of trash onto it. The preliminary investigation suggests the hoist picked up the scoop and trapped Finney underneath.

Pocahontas Coal is a subsidiary of Tennessee-based United Coal Co., which is controlled by Ukraine-based Metinvest.

In March 2012, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration listed the Affinity mine among three that had been caught giving illegal, advance warning that inspectors were onsite the month before. MSHA proposed nearly $126,000 in fines last year, but its database shows only about $16,400 has been paid.

Affinity has been cited 10 times for failing to protect workers from roof falls, 10 times for problems with fire sensors and automatic warning devices, and eight times for problems with ventilation controls. The database shows five equipment-related violations, three violations related to escapeways and two violations related to its roof-control plan, among other things.

So far, MSHA has proposed fines for only two of the minor violations. The rest have yet to be assessed.

MSHA director Joe Main praised Tomblin’s initiative and said his inspectors, supervisors and managers will travel throughout the state starting Thursday to talk with operators, miners and miners’ representatives about what he called an “alarming trend.”

“Mine operators need to make sure that they are conducting proper mine safety examinations to find and fix hazards,” he said, “and they need to make sure that miners are properly trained to do the jobs they are assigned, particularly activities not part of their normal routine.”

MSHA will also issue a written alert describing all six deaths, along with best practices for preventing them.

“The industry is coming off two of the safest years in mining in this country,” Main said. “The six deaths that occurred over the last month are tragic and unacceptable, and MSHA will take whatever actions are necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of all our miners.”

On Tuesday, before the latest fatality, White told legislators he’s visited the site of each mining death since becoming director Jan. 1.

“I wish I could answer, and tell you what the problem is. I probably wouldn’t be director. I’d be rich and I’d be a consultant,” he told the House of Delegates. “… Our fatalities are occurring to our older coal miners, most of them, and some of them I don’t understand why they happened.”

Earlier this month, 34-year-old Brandon Townsend of Delbarton died when a hydraulic jack exploded on a belt press at Midland Trail Energy’s Blue Creek preparation plant in Kanawha County. Another worker was injured in the blast at that mine, which is owned by St. Louis-based Patriot Coal.

Last week, 51-year-old Glen Clutter of Baxter died of head injuries he suffered while trying to put a loaded supply car back on track at CONSOL Energy’s Loveridge Mine.

 

 

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Federal Watchdog Issues Report on Gas Pipeline Safety

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Federal regulators must account for response times in the data they collect from transmission operators on natural gas pipeline incidents, a congressional watchdog agency said this week.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which oversees natural gas, oil and hazardous liquids pipelines in the U.S., doesn’t require operators to fill out certain time-related fields when reporting incidents. Operators also have indicated they interpret the data fields in different ways.

“Reliable data would improve PHMSA’s ability to measure incident response and assist the agency in exploring the feasibility of developing a performance-based approach for improving operator response to pipeline incidents,” the report said.

The report comes a month after a 20-inch line owned by Columbia Gas Transmission ruptured in West Virginia, triggering a massive fire. The Dec. 11 inferno destroyed four homes and charred a section of Interstate 77 near Sissonville, about 15 miles north of Charleston. No one was seriously injured.

Federal investigators say it took Columbia Gas Transmission, a subsidiary of Texas-based NiSource Gas Transmission & Storage, more than an hour to manually shut off the gas that fueled the fire, which sent flames as high as nearby hilltops.

And in September 2010, gas continued to escape for nearly 90 minutes after a ruptured pipeline exploded in a suburb of San Francisco. The explosion, which was blamed on an inferior pipeline weld, killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes. Investigators said the damage would have been less severe had automatic valves been in place.

The National Transportation Safety Board has long advocated requiring automated valves that could shut off gas in such situations within minutes. Currently, manual valves are required at intervals

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U.S. Issues Mine Safety Rule on Patterns of Violations

January 18, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Labor Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced a final rule to strengthen safety in the nation’s most dangerous mines.

Solis said that the rule, which revises the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s pattern of violations regulation, seeks to ensure that mine address the most hazardous safety problems in their mines. It also strengthens MSHA’s hand to respond to dangerous mining conditions.

“The tragedy at the Upper Big Branch Mine should not be forgotten. It exacted a terrible toll on the nation, coal miners’ families and coal companies. Over the last three years, the Labor Department has undergone a serious and comprehensive evaluation of mine safety practices, and that has led to reforms to protect America’s miners. The rule we are announcing today will hold mine operators accountable when they disregard life-saving safety measures,” Solis said.

The rule has been submitted to the Federal Register for publication.

Joseph A. Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, said the final rule “will help prevent another tragedy such as occurred at the Upper Big Branch Mine” in West Virginia where 29 people were killed.

Main said the rule promotes consistency in applying the pattern of violations (POV) notice as an enforcement tool, provides for a more transparent process and emphasizes operators’ responsibility to comply with safety and health standards and monitor their own compliance.

Under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, MSHA is required to issue a POV notice to any mine operator that demonstrates a disregard for the health and safety of miners through a pattern of significant and substantial violations. An S&S violation is one that contributes to a safety or health hazard that is reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness.

The POV final rule places the MSHA in a better position to identify operators that demonstrate a disregard for the health and safety of miners and have not responded to other enforcement measures.

“There has been recognition by many that the system has been broken, with no mine being placed on POV status until 2011

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FDA Proposes New Food Safety Rules

January 4, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsU.S. regulators proposed new food safety rules on Friday that aim to make food processors and farms more accountable for reducing foodborne illnesses that kill or sicken thousands of Americans annually.

The new rules, required by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) that was signed into law two years ago, were announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday.

“These proposed regulations are a sign of progress,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who has been a critic of the FDA. “The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place.”

Roughly one in six Americans suffers from a foodborne illness each year, and about 3,000 die, the FDA said. The United States has had numerous outbreaks from foodborne illnesses tied to salmonella, E. coli and listeria.

Food sickness has been linked to lettuce, cantaloupe, spinach, peppers and peanuts.

“We’re taking a big step for food safety by proposing the standards that will help us prevent food safety problems rather than just reacting to them,” said Michael Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine.

Under the new rules, makers of food to be sold in the United States, whether produced at a foreign- or domestic-based facility, would have to develop a formal plan for preventing their products from causing foodborne illness.

The rule would also require them to have plans for correcting any problems that arise.

Companies will be required to document their plans and keep records to verify that they are preventing problems. Inspectors will be able to audit the program to enforce safety standards, which should “dramatically” improve the effectiveness of inspections, Taylor said.

Though many food processors already have documented food safety plans, the new rule sets requirements for “all firms across all commodities,” he said.

A second rule proposes safety standard requirements for farms that produce and harvest fruits and vegetables. Farms would be required to meet national standards for the quality of water applied to their crops, as water is often a pathway for pathogens.

Implementing the new rules will add costs for some food companies and farms, Taylor said. As well, the FDA will need money to retrain inspectors and implement the rules, Taylor said.

The Food Safety Modernization Act was the first food safety overhaul in over 70 years in the United States and was signed into law in January 2011.

The proposals followed a series of meetings between FDA officials and consumer groups, corporate interests, researchers, and others.

Critics have charged FDA with dragging its feet in implementing the requirements of the new law. Last August, the Center for Food Safety sued the FDA for missing several deadlines set under the law.

The standards for analyzing and documenting hazards were due last July, and the standards for safe production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables were due last January.

Within the next few months, FDA hopes to issue a proposed rule on preventative controls for animal feed as well as proposed regulations related to importer accountability for food safety.

The FDA is also setting requirements for the safe transport of food, and to set standards for trying to prevent intentional contamination of food.

 

 

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Texas Green Industry Safety Group Dividends now Exceed $3M

November 28, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Dallas-based Hotchkiss Insurance Programs LLC announced a $273,731 dividend to the Texas Green Industry Workers’ Compensation Safety Group (TGI), bringing total dividends paid to the group to $3,246,032. The group’s total premium volume and loss ratio are factors in determining its dividend.

The TGI Safety Group, formed in February 2004 exclusively for landscapers, nursery growers and other green industry businesses in Texas, provides workers’ compensation coverage that provides an automatic 10.9 percent premium discount to every policyholder.

The announcement marks the eighth dividend paid to the group’s policyholders by Texas Mutual Insurance Co., the program underwriter.

The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) allows employers in similar industries to reduce their workers’ comp premiums by purchasing their coverage as a group. The TGI Safety Group is a TDI-approved safety group that is open to most growers, landscape contractors, retail nursery, irrigation contractors and other green industry businesses.

Any licensed Texas insurance agent may submit a qualifying client for consideration in the group. Past dividends are not a guarantee of future dividends, and TDI must approve all dividends.

Source: Hotchkiss Insurance Programs LLC

 

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San Francisco Hires Quake Safety Czar

October 19, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A building permit consultant in California has been hired as San Francisco’s first earthquake safety czar.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Patrick Otellini is a certified building inspector who served on the mayor’s task force examining soft-story building risks.

So-called soft-story buildings have a garage or storefront on the first floor, making them prone to collapse in a major quake.

As director of earthquake safety, Otellini will implement a 30-year plan to reduce the city’s most dangerous risks in a future earthquake, including retrofitting soft-story buildings, private schools and some concrete buildings.

Otellini will be paid between $108,000 and $138,000 a year.

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Insurance Institute Names 4 Car Models Top Safety Picks

October 4, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsThe Dodge Dart, the model Chrysler is betting on becoming a top-selling small car, was among four new vehicles on the U.S. market to receive a top crash-test rating by an influential safety group on Wednesday.

The 2013 Dart, the first model jointly engineered and designed by Fiat SpA and Chrysler Group LLC, was named a “Top Safety Pick” by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Three other 2013 models, each one redesigned from previous model years, also earned the top rating: the Hyundai Motor Co. crossover Santa Fe, the Lexus ES 350 midsize luxury sedan, and the Subaru XV Crosstrek hatchback.

The rating means that each vehicle performed well in test crashes evaluating front, side and rear impacts as well as rollovers.

“We had high expectations for the Dart and our engineers delivered,” said Reid Bigland, chief of Chrysler’s Dodge brand.

Of the 180 vehicles IIHS tested for the 2012 model year, 132 were awarded the Top Safety Pick designation, said Russ Rader, spokesman for IIHS.

The IIHS will issue in December its annual list of the safety report for vehicles sold in the U.S. market. These four models were tested after manufacturers requested the tests ahead of the normal IIHS schedule, Rader said.

Each of the four models were introduced to the U.S. market within the last several months.

Hyundai’s Santa Fe sold the most among the new models in September, at 7,378, an increase of 19 percent over last year, a marked improvement over August sales of 4,524, indicating the attractiveness of the newer model.

Hyundai last month said that it aimed to sell 100,000 of the newly remodeled Santa Fe vehicles in the 2013 model year in the U.S. market.

The Lexus ES, from Toyota Motor Corp , sold 6,553 vehicles in September in the U.S. market, up 81 percent from a year ago. A Lexus spokesman said that 80 percent of the cars sold in September were the new 2013 model.

Dart’s September U.S. sales were 5,235, up from August sales of 3,045.

In its first full month of sales, Subaru’s XV Crosstrek’s September sales were 192.

While 73 percent of the models IIHS tested last year received the top safety rating, next year’s test will be more stringent.

The new front crash tests will evaluate a vehicle’s safety in a crash that impacts the front corners. This will be more demanding because most manufacturers create a structure for vehicles that can better absorb middle-front collisions.

In a recent test of 11 luxury midsize cars by using the new corner-front crash evaluation, only two models earned the top safety ranking, the IIHS said.

Subaru is owned by Fuji Heavy Industries of Japan.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Richard Chang)

 

 

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Wyoming Pushes Workplace Safety With New Hire

May 25, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead announced Wednesday the state is hiring a veteran public health official from New Mexico to continue the push to reduce Wyoming’s workplace fatality rate.

Dr. C. Mack Sewell, who has served as New Mexico’s state epidemiologist since 1989, will start work in Wyoming in early July.

Sewell, 63, follows Dr. Timothy Ryan, who resigned last winter after submitting a scathing report to Mead. Ryan concluded Wyoming employers consistently fail to enforce safety rules while telling their employees to just “get the job done.”

The overall workplace death rate in Wyoming was more than three and a half times the national average in 2010. It has ranked worst in the nation five of the past 10 years. Ryan’s report singled out Wyoming’s oil and gas industry, which produces a hefty portion of the state’s revenues.

Ryan’s yearlong review of Wyoming records found that safety rules were commonly ignored in the 62 fatalities in Wyoming’s petroleum industry from 2001-2008. He wrote that objects struck or crushed 16 of 32 workers killed on drilling rigs while 17 of the 25 oil and gas workers killed in vehicle accidents weren’t wearing seat belts.

The Wyoming Legislature, meanwhile, has resisted calls to increase fines for safety violations. The state this year beefed up the ranks of inspectors available to perform voluntary safety evaluations at industry’s request.

Joan Evans, head of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, joined Mead at a press conference in Cheyenne on Wednesday to announce Sewell’s hiring. She said members of the state’s Work Force Fatality Task Force, including representatives from trucking, contracting and labor organizations, participated in the interview process that led to Sewell’s hiring.

Mead said he expects Sewell to continue Ryan’s work. He said Ryan’s work showed the state needs to continue monitoring information about accidents.

Mead said Ryan’s work also showed the difficulty of compiling information about workplace safety.

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Federal Aviation Safety Regulators Ignore Whistleblowers: Watchdog

May 10, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The Federal Aviation Administration has repeatedly dragged its feet in responding to whistleblower complaints about safety problems and stronger oversight of air safety is needed, a government watchdog said.

Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner, whose job is to protect from retaliation government employees who expose mismanagement or wrongdoing, detailed seven FAA whistleblower cases in letters to the White House and Congress. The cases, Lerner said, “paint a picture of an agency with insufficient responsiveness given its critical public safety mission.”

Some of the cases are years old, but Lerner said air traffic controllers and other FAA whistleblowers continued to point out safety problems after making their initial allegations because the agency failed to take promised actions to correct the problems. Other cases are more recent.

For example, Lerner said an investigation has confirmed most of the complaints made last year by Evan Seeley, a controller formerly assigned to one of the world’s busiest air traffic control centers on Long Island, N.Y. Among the allegations that were substantiated were that controllers slept in the control room at night, left shifts early, used personal electronic devices while on duty, used improper air traffic control procedures and engaged in work stoppages to gain overtime pay.

While the FAA has taken action to correct those problems, Lerner said another controller has recently made nearly identical allegations about a different air traffic control facility which she didn’t identify.

The FAA has one of the highest rates of whistleblower filings per employee of any government agency, Lerner said.

The counsel’s office has received 178 whistleblower disclosures from FAA employees since 2007, 89 of which related to aviation safety. Forty-four cases were referred to the Transportation Department for investigation, and all but five were substantiated.

 

 

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Pennsylvania Farmers Highlight Safety on Rural Roads

April 23, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Jim Rexroth knows what happens when drivers don’t pay attention to large farm equipment traveling on rural roads.

The Lower Windsor Township, York County, Penn., farmer and his employees at Rexroth Farms have been involved in “small fender benders” several times in the past couple years, he said.

“It was things like farm equipment turning left as a car was trying to pass or a car underestimating the width of something,” he said. “We’d like to prevent these kinds of things if we can.”

Last Wednesday, Rexroth and several officials from various organizations came together at Rexroth Farms to talk about safety on the roads as planting season begins.

There were 92 crashes and four fatalities on Pennsylvania’s roadways involving farm equipment, said Mike Keiser, an engineering executive with PennDOT. By sharing the roads and being patient, drivers can prevent most of these crashes.

“We have to share the roads with a lot of different things,” Keiser said. “We’re all out there together.”

Farmers — who are allowed to drive their equipment on the roads — will often try to get out of the way when they can, but they need drivers to be patient and wait for equipment to find a place to pull over, said Carl Shaffer, president of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and a farmer from Columbia County.

“We’re aware we’re slowing down traffic,” he said.

But farmers also need to extra take precautions and make sure they’re doing everything they can to avoid accidents on the road, Rexroth said. The farm “spares no expense” when it comes to adding flashers and lights to their large equipment to alert other vehicles of their presence on the road and avoids traveling during peak driving hours, he said.

“We don’t want to be on the road during (busy) times,” he said.

 

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N.Y. Officials Target Safety on Dangerous Roadway in Nassau County

May 9, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Safety upgrades are planned for a New York highway that has averaged five pedestrian deaths annually since 2005.

Officials in Nassau County are targeting repainted crosswalks, increased signal time for walkers, and upgraded crossing signals.

Newsday reports the changes are coming to Hempstead Turnpike.

The 16-mile roadway that runs through the center of the county has seen an average of five pedestrian deaths annually between 2005 and 2011. State transportation officials say further safety improvements are also being studied.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a transportation advocacy group, ranks roads for pedestrians annually. Hempstead Turnpike has topped its list of most dangerous roads for walkers in the New York region four times.

 

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Do Safety Incentives Discourage Workers from Reporting Injuries?

May 10, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Many employers are in the dark over whether their safety incentive programs encourage or discourage the reporting of injuries and illnesses by their employees, or if they have no effect.

But a new report says employers, and the federal officials who oversee workplace safety, should care what effects the incentives are having.

In March 2005, 15 workers died and 180 others were injured in an explosion at the BP Texas City refinery. A safety incentive program at the refinery rewarded workers with bonuses for achieving low rates of injuries and illnesses. A 2007 study after the explosion found that workers feared reprisals for reporting potentially risky conditions at the refinery.

That accident also prompted members of Congress to ask the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) to look into safety programs. In 2009, GAO issued a report that found that safety incentive programs

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$581K Study to Look At Safety On Las Vegas Strip

April 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Elected officials concerned about safety and the image of the Las Vegas Strip are funneling $581,000 in hotel room tax money into a three-month study of pedestrian areas on the tourist corridor.

The Clark County Commission on Tuesday called for Resort Corridor Workgroup to recommend laws and funding to curb unregulated commercial activity on sidewalks in Nevada’s adult playground.

The advisory panel was established last year with law enforcement, casino and tourism representatives.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that more police and surveillance cameras are among proposals being considered.

Nevada Resort Association chief Virginia Valentine points to letters from tourists complaining that walking on the Strip is a

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Riviezzo Joins Safety National as Business Development Rep.

April 3, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

St. Louis, Mo.-based Safety National Casualty Corp. announced that James Riviezzo has joined the company as business development representative. He will be based in Safety National’s New York City regional office.


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