If there’s anything OSHA hates more than negligence, it’s repeat offenders. One-time accidents that kill or maim dozens is a blight on any company record that can’t be wiped clean. When that same company repeats its chemical trespasses, federal safety officials will turn into your worst enemy. Following chemical storage incidents, OSHA outlines the violations while providing guidance for corrective measures. In their eyes, there’s no reason that same accident should happen twice. Recurring violations can result in steeper fines and penalties, placing the company under greater scrutiny of OSHA and community stakeholders. Our fire-rated chemical storage lockers can resolve your current storage dilemma while avoiding recurring hazmat fines.
Prevent Future Accidents With Steel-Gauge Protection
Not all is lost if you find yourself on the receiving end of recurring hazmat fines. Your company can quickly get your operations back up and running with keen insight and astute evaluations. Failing to learn from past mistakes does little to ingratiate your base of operations in the community you call home. They will soon question the viability of sustained operations in their neighborhoods if you become a repeat offender of dangerous chemical incidents. Town officials in Newburyport, Massachusetts find themselves will soon consider asking a chemical plant in its industrial park to leave following another hazmat incident earlier this spring. In May, fire officials responded to reports of an explosion at the PCI Synthesis in the town’s industrial park. While combating the billowing smoke and scorching flames, firefighters discovered a large chemical vat, which had come to rest in an adjacent parking lot after being blown skyward by the blast. Needless to say, the explosion was packing quite the velocity and combustibles.
Avoiding Recurring Hazmat Fines Silences Public Outcry
This explosion wasn’t the first at the Newburyport plant. The company has been on OSHA’s radar for some time. And once you find yourselves under the watchful eye of government enforcers, it’s tough to find a blind spot. In 2021, federal officials told the factory to temporarily cease operations following a chemical fire. Then in 2019, OSHA fined PCI for violations relating to “process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals,” specifically mentioning procedures in place to prevent fires. If subsequent fines weren’t bad enough, state lawmakers took turns weighing in on the company’s transgressions, bringing the chastising intervention full circle.
“This explosion is only the latest avoidable disaster at this facility, following years of serious safety violations, multiple fines, and other explosions,” the lawmakers wrote. “We write seeking the explanation as to why this latest incident occurred and how, after years of fines and regulatory enforcement actions, Seqens could have allowed unsafe conditions to persist. We can’t keep excusing companies’ flagrant disregard for worker safety,”
Source: whdh.com
Stay Compliant With Fire-Rated Steel Protection
There’s little we can do about the past other than learn from these mistakes. No one wants to be the root cause of a disaster. Malice is almost never a contributing factor to dangerous explosions and recurring chemical fires. Even with the best of intentions and foresight, accidents can still happen. In the eyes of OSHA and the EPA, they don’t delineate chemical incidents based on intent or ignorance. To federal authorities who sift through the debris of volatile chemical incidents almost daily, they have little compassion for those not avoiding recurring hazmat fines. They don’t jot down an asterisk on the clipboards with the denotation of, “Hey, yea, this chemical incident happened, but they really didn’t mean it!” They only see continued negligence.
If you have found yourself receiving an OSHA safety violation, don’t despair. By investing in temporary storage protection from U.S. Hazmat Rentals, you can ensure these mistakes don’t happen again. Our fire-rated and non fire-rated chemical storage lockers can provide guaranteed compliance. We offer superior steel protection for flammables, toxic liquids, ballistic materials, batteries, fertilizers and almost any other chemical classification imaginable. If you haven’t invested in compliant chemical storage, take heed of the woes of others who failed to seek protection. Don’t become another casualty or statistic. Contact us today for a free quote.