Is Middeltown Mayor speaking for OSHA?

Officials from state and federal agencies have begun investigating the cause of the deadly explosion at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown, CT that took the lives of Peter Chetulis, Ronald J. Crabb, 42, Raymond Dobratz, 58, Chris Walters, 42, and Roy Rushton.  In “Investigators to Sift Power Plant Rubble for Evidence of Criminal Negligence,” the New York Times is reporting that Middletown Mayor Sebastian N. Giuliano said investigators from the US Chemical Safety Board are not welcome on the site.

“Mr. Giuliano…said the board’s investigators had no role to play at the moment. ‘They’d be in the way,’ he said at a news conference, adding that two other federal agencies — the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — ‘don’t want them up there.’”

It sounded strange to me that OSHA would object to the CSB’s presence, and I wondered if Mayor Guiliano was putting words in OSHA’s mouth.   The CSB announced on Sunday it was deploying a 7-person team to Middletown, and seasoned investigator Don Holmstrom would lead their effort.

Mayor Guiliano’s words nagged me—”don’t want them up there….don’t want them up there.”   I decided to check with US Dept of Labor spokesperson Ted Fitzgerald in Boston, whose name appeared on a condolence statement issued by Secretary Solis in response to the disaster.   Ted Fitzgerald said that OSHA works cooperatively with other investigative agencies, and the

“Middletown investigation is no exception.” 

Your home is your (dangerous) castle

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure

Most people feel safe at home, but statistically it’s not the safest place to be, at least in terms of being injured (here injury includes not only trauma but poisoning, but if we restrict it to trauma probably little is changed). Here’s one of CDC’s “Quickstat” looks at the percentage distribution of injuries by place of occurrence, as reported in a cluster sample of the US population (the National Health Interview Survey). The years covered are 2004 to 2007:

Energy Plant Explosion Kills Five

Yesterday afternoon, a massive explosion at an under-construction Connecticut power plant killed five workers and wounded several more. Workers at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown, CT were reportedly purging a natural gas line, and the explosion was so powerful that residents towns away reported hearing it and feeling tremors. About 100 firefighters worked for an hour to extinguish the blaze and then begin searching for survivors, local station WFSB reports.

The Hartford Courant gives the names of two of the five workers killed: Pipefitters Ronald Crabb, 42, of Colchester, and Raymond E. Dobratz, 58, of Old Saybrook. Twenty-six victims were also treated for injuries, and five of them remain hospitalized.

The Chemical Safety Board reports that it’s deploying a seven-person investigative team to the explosion site. Their news release also contains this very relevant piece of information:

Random thoughts on CDC’s swine flu effort: epidemiology and surveillance

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure

We still don’t know if we are experiencing a lull in flu or the virus has burned itself out for the season, but it’s as good a time as any to reflect a bit on where we’ve been and where we still need to go. Being otherwise occupied (I’m sure you are sick of hearing about my grant writing obsession but not half as sick as I am about having it!), I’ll start with something relatively straightforward: how CDC did on the epidemiology and surveillance front. Historically this is the agency’s strong suit and so it is expected they would have acquitted themselves well. And pretty much, they did. A lot of good epidemiology got done and the surveillance system more or less worked to provide important information. But this doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.

Portland Models Cycling Planning

Portland, Oregon is already a model city in many ways, including an impressive public transit system and a high rate of bicycle commuting. Now, reports Joseph Rose of The Oregonian/Associated Press, Portland’s City Council is poised to approve a $613 million plan that would build 681 new miles of bike lanes over the next two decades.

Rose collects a couple of different perspectives on the plan. Mayor Sam Adams thinks it’ll be hard for the city to reach its goals of increasing neighborhood livability and transportation affordability while slashing greenhouse gas emissions. John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute (which “promotes property rights, incentives, markets and decentralized decision-making”) expresses skepticism about the plan’s ability to meet its goal of making cycling more attractive than driving for trips of under three miles.

That’s an ambitious goal, but it’s based on years of research. Rose explains that the Portland Transportation Bureau has been conducting surveys and outreach for years, and now categorizes 60% of the city’s residents as interested in cycling but concerned about their ability to do so. New bike lanes and altered road designs in the plan will make cycling safer, and more attractive to those who may be reluctant to brave biking in traffic.

Then, there’s the question of cost.

More on the Importance of Agencies

Following Tim Dickinson’s Rolling Stone article about what Lisa Jackson is accomplishing at EPA, John B. Judis publishes a piece in the New Republic about the Obama “revolution” going on as Obama appointees at multiple federal agencies enthusiastically enforce laws intended to keep our air, food, drus, and workplaces safe. Judis contrasts previous Republican agency heads to Obama appointees as EPA, OSHA, FDA, and FEMA, and rattles off the budget increases that will allow several agencies to step up enforcement activities.

I’m not as optimistic as Judis that Cass Sunstein’s appointment to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs signals a complete about-face from the previous administration’s roadblock-to-regulation approach. (Rena Steinzor and her colleagues at the Center for Progressive Reform have voiced concerns about Sunstein; see here and here, for instance.) Judis is right, though, to highlight OIRA as a key determinant in the face of federal agencies’ regulatory activities, and he provides an interesting summary of the use of cost-benefit analysis over the past few decades.

An otherwise optimistic article ends with a note of warning. Judis cautions:

Peer review problems: just in the Nature of things

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure

The Nature blog, The Great Beyond, has an interesting although not surprising report of accusations on BBC that a cabal of researchers has been impeding publication of important stem cell research to help themselves or help their friends:

NYT Budget Graphic is Worth a Thousand Words

The New York Times has translated President Obama’s 2011 budget into an interactive graphic that shows at a glance where our money’s going. With totals of $738 billion each, National Defense and Social Security account for one-third of the block. Medicare ($498 billion) and Income Security ($560 billion) dominate the middle section.

Color-coding identifies areas where spending is projected to either rise or fall. A projected drop in income security programs (unemployment, food stamps, etc) and grants to state Medicaid program suggests that the administration expects that the need for such programs will drop as the economy improves, and/or Congress won’t approve another stimulus package with additional funding for these benefits.

Perhaps the most important lesson from this graphic comes when you click on the “Hide Mandatory Spending” button.

DART rates and worker safety

In a post last week (and previously) I’ve mentioned the limitations of using “days away and restricted time” (DART) incidence rates as an adequate metric of an employer’s health and safety performance.  This seems especially true for refineries, chemical plants and sites with combustible dust hazards, where unitentional fires, ruptured equipment, and chemical releases may be warning signs of serious trouble.

A knowledgeable TPH reader reminded me that this very issue–the inadequacy of using DART rates to assess process safety—was addressed in the Chemical Safety Board’s report of the March 2005 BP Texas City disaster.  CSB referred to a 2004 paper by Michael Broadribb and colleagues saying:

“one key lesson for industry was that preventing major incidents ‘requires a specific focus on process safety management over and above conventional safety management,’ and ‘traditional indicators such as ‘days away from work’ do not provide a good indication of process safety performance.’”

Thinking beyond employer reports to focus OSHA’s attention

I’ve been following the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward’s coverage of the death of Carl “Danny” Fish, 58 from exposure to phosgene on Jan 24 while working at the DuPont Corp’s plant in Belle, WV.  (Mr. Fish’s photo and obituary)  Ward’s reporting started with DuPont downplaying the incident, then a confirmation by the company of the worker’s  death (here), followed by the US Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) decision to investigate the incident (here), and DuPont’s “safety pause” at the plant (here).   Within a day, it was a preliminary report from CSB investigators that the phosgene-containing hose was worn and frayed (here), and then the US EPA’s announcement that they are launching an investigation of the recent chemical releases (here).   

Based on Ward’s reporting and the brief statement from the CSB, there’s been a history of near misses at the Belle plant, including releases of chloromethane, phosphoric acid, and sulphur trioxide.  In Ward’s ”OSHA and DuPont: Belle plant seldom inspected,” he noted it was the first time in nearly five years that federal safety inspectors* had set foot in the plant.  Prior to that, OSHA visited the plant in 1995.  OSHA provided an official response to Ward, explaining:

“They have not been inspected since 2005 because we have not received a formal complaint or referral, there have been no fatalities and their injury and illness rate is low enough so that they are not on our Site Specific Targeting list.”

That response is unsatisfying.