Electrical and Arc Flash Safety » Arc Flash Fines

DOE Imposes $1.2 Million “reduction of fees” on Bechtel in Arc Flash Event at Oak Ridge Lab

Hugh Hoagland — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:39:46 +0000

DOE is one of the toughest on electrical safety. Bechtel has a good rep too. Shows improvements can happen anywhere and that programs can slip when training slips.

Click here to read the story about an arc flash in the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Share and Enjoy:

Arc Flash Citation $22K by OH&S in Saskatoon. CSA Z462 could have prevented the incident.

Hugh Hoagland — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:26:12 +0000

Wearing the right PPE is critical but other provisions to prevent arc flashes and lower incident energies in incidents are part of CSA Z462 and NFPA 70E. These provisions prevent many of the incidents in the workplace.

Click here to read the story of the arc flash fine in Canada at OH&S Insider.

Share and Enjoy:

USPS in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Bedford Park Proposed Fines of >$1,000,000 for Electrical Hazards

Hugh Hoagland — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:07:54 +0000

More and more USPS facilities are being fined by OSHA. These include many willful citations. Inside sources claim the postal service making claim they are not covered by NFPA 70E but it is unlikely OSHA cited them on NFPA 70E. They usually recommend NFPA 70E for abatement of arc flash or electrical hazards but the employer can remove these hazards in other manners in some cases.

Read the press releases.

Pittsburgh, PA USPS OSHA Citation for Electrical Hazards

Philadelphia, PA USPS OSHA Citation for Electrical Hazards

Bedford Park, IL USPS OSHA Citation for Electrical Hazards

Share and Enjoy:

Electric Utility in Kentucky Fined by PSC: “You can’t contract away liability for electrical safety.”

Hugh Hoagland — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:34:54 +0000

One of the most common myths in electrical safety is “When in doubt, contract it out”. That is very dangerous for a company. We support contracting out BUT you must still take some ownership for safety. Too many companies do not manage contractor safety well. The Kentucky Public Service Commission administered the fine to the utility. Interesting OSHA didn’t do it.

Click Here to Read the Story.

Share and Enjoy:

December, 2003 AZ OSHA Cites City of Scottsdale, AZ for Arc Flash Incident

Hugh Hoagland — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:53:38 +0000

This is another older citation from December 2003 to show how OSHA has been incorporating NFPA 70E into the precedents. The HVAC worker was burned badly in an arc flash. No clothing ignition so the energy level was fairly low but I understand he received second and third degree burns on his arms.

Click Here to Read the ADOSH Citation of the City of Scottsdale, AZ for an arc flash of an HVAC Worker.

Share and Enjoy:

Canadian Company fined $22K for Arc Flash in Saskatoon

Hugh Hoagland — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:32:57 +0000

Following CSA Z462 will prevent most of these injuries and almost all the fines. The standard came out in 2008 but many in Canada had been using the US, NFPA 70E before the Canadian version came out. I’m a member of Z462 and a big supporter of the methodology to prevent injuries and fatalities. Most companies who train, audit and follow up with procedural changes see real decreases in incidences. Most shocks are prevented by just wearing rubber gloves and leather protectors and most fatalities are prevented by also adding to that wearing arc rated flame resistant clothing. It is pretty simple to do. We have digested it into 7 electrical safe work habits in our training.

Good to see Canadian government recognition of arc flash.

Click here to read the story from Winnipeg Free Press

Share and Enjoy:

March 2000 OSHA fined Ford Hamburg, NY $57,125 for alleged serious & repeat violations. Two injured in arc flash.

Hugh Hoagland — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:27:05 +0000

This is an older story but a good one to see when OSHA started working to enforce more on electrical safety surrounding arc flash. Up until 2000, OSHA really only addressed arc flash in electric utilities. The 1994 law 29 CFR 1910.269 came out then and OSHA really started focusing on arc flash in utilities. The utilities really helped write much of the standard but the arc flash portion came from OSHA direct from testimony from ASTM’s Allen Bingham. Bingham (a personal friend) had been doing research while at Georga Power with Dupont’s Dr. Tom Neal (also a personal friend) at Duke Energy’s Challenger Lab with ASTM. Their results and Dupont history indicated that arc flashes often ignite clothing and cause burns of fatalities. Duke’s Alan Privette had done a lot of the research up until that point spurred by accident history and Ralph Lee’s paper on arc flash.

The 2000 version of NFPA 70E picked up clothing. In 1995 the main focus was on shock protection but the idea of arc flash boundary was introduced based on Ralph Lee’s 1982 paper. Ralph created a simple model adapted from an explosion model and assumed arc flash released mostly infrared radiation (partially true). This was seminal work that is still used in some circles today though it goes off quite a bit at higher voltages.

OSHA’s citations since 2000 have been mentioning NFPA 70E more and more in the abatement wording.

For the record. Ford Motor implemented safety changes to prevent these types of injuries. GM had been on the committee actively involved and Ford was partially represented by Drake Drobnick from the Visteon division. The Visteon program implemented after this accident was among one of the best we have seen. Drake now works with e-Hazard doing electrical safety training and consulting.

Click here to read the OSHA press release on this citation.

Click here to read the original citation in PDF.

http://bit.ly/aQDm1j

Share and Enjoy:

Arc Flash of Electrical Trainee Results in a Fine.

Hugh Hoagland — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:45:54 +0000

Very important to provide proper training even for trainees. Many good companies get caught with this one.

Click here to read the story.

Share and Enjoy:

OSHA fined South Reading (PA) Blacktop plant $4,250 for safety violations in an arc flash that injured two workers.

Hugh Hoagland — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:40:10 +0000

OSHA fined South Reading (PA) Blacktop plant $4,250 for safety violations in an arc flash that injured two workers. OSHA cited labels, and training of the workers.

http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=187125

Share and Enjoy: