Jury Finds Xcel Energy Not Guilty In

[Trojan]

A federal jury has found Minneapolis based Xcel Energy and its subsidiary Public Service Company of Colorado not guilty in the October 2, 2007 deaths of five painters. The company faced fines of up to $500,000 on each count if convicted. Criminal prosecutions of companies are extremely rare. A 2003 investigation by The New York Times and PBS's Frontline found that only 151 of the more than 200,000 workplace deaths OSHA had investigated were referred to federal prosecutors, who chose not to take action in two-thirds of them. Civil suits have also been filed against RPI and two other contractors.

Nine men, employees of California-based RPI Coatings, were working inside a 4,300 foot long concrete water tunnel called a penstock at the Cabin Creek plant. Authorities said the workers had just finished abrasive blasting the inside of the tunnel, which serves as a pipe from a mountain reservoir to a hydroelectric generator. They then began spraying epoxy paint inside the tunnel but were having problems keeping the mixture flowing through the hoses, authorities said. They painted about 10 feet of the tunnel and stopped for the day.

While cleaning their spray equipment with the flammable solvent methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), a fire broke out, probably ignited by a static spark from machinery inside the tunnel, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which investigated the accident. RPI had 15 gallons of solvent in the penstock and no fire extinguisher near the work area.

Four of the men ran out one end of the pipe to safety. Five men ran away from the fire toward the other end but were trapped when they reached a near-vertical portion of the pipe, which they couldn't climb. Their bodies were found nearby. Their cause of death was ruled to be asphyxiation. Their ages ranged from fifty-two to nineteen years old. Three other workers were injured.

Firefighters tried to reach the workers by taking a small gas-powered all-terrain vehicle through the tunnel, but they were turned back by thick smoke. A rescue would have required firefighters using ropes or ladders to go down a 20-foot vertical section of tunnel, then down a 1,000-foot section of the steeply sloped pipe to reach the workers. The five trapped workers communicated via radio for 45 minutes with colleagues and rescue crews before succumbing to the fumes.

RPI Coatings is scheduled to stand trial separately at a later date. RPI is also facing a count of obstruction. The grand jury found that the company knowingly altered, destroyed or concealed the victims' cameras, journals and cell phones with the intent to impede or influence government investigators.

In March 2008, OSHA proposed $845,100 in penalties against RPI and $189,900 against Xcel. "This catastrophe could have been avoided if the companies had followed their critical safety procedures, said Edwin Foulke, OSHA assistant secretary. "There should never be such a disregard for the safety of employees."

RPI Coatings, the subcontractor whose men died inside the tunnel, was fined $845,100 for bringing unsafe electrical equipment into the tunnel, unsafe handling of flammable liquids, failing to provide adequate ventilation and failing to provide an emergency response for accidents.

A U.S. Chemical Safety Board report says Xcel Energy and contractor RPI Coating Inc. disregarded worker safety: "The investigation found a number of safety issues contributed to the accident, including a lack of planning for hazardous work, inadequate contractor selection and oversight, and insufficient regulatory standards pertaining to the use of flammables within confined space,"

"The Xcel penstock project was under tight schedule constraints," the CSB report says. "Severe weather concerns, several unplanned work delays, and perceived production requirements placed RPI employees under intense pressure to complete the recoating work. These stressors contributed to a rushed work pace, which likely affected the crew's ability to focus on safety.:

[msutz]

If so many safety hazards were discovered, how was the verdict not guilty? I must be missing something.

[Trojan]

Who knows? Well, I guess the jury does. A lot of guilty people get acquitted.

[lineman2010]

It is hard to say what Excel was actually charged with. Without knowing anything other than what was posted the prosecutor/s must have felt that Excel's safety people should have been over looking the outside contractor closely enough to hold Excel liable. I can very easily see how excel was not found guilty, now the other company... Sounds like they will get hammered. They might have already gone under from that accident though and the prosecutor/s wanted to try and pin this death on someone so might as well take a swing at the company so big it will not go under by the fines...

[Trojan]

There is a lot of interesting information to read on the web, especially stuff by the chemical safety board and OSHA tracked the delays that Xcel caused.
I don't think employers are risking jail time even if they intentionally (which would be hard to prove) put workers at risk.