Worker deaths expose corporate safety negligence

Five workers died on Oct. 2 when vapor from a solvent they mixed with an epoxy to coat a pipe at a pumped storage plant near Georgetown, Colo., was ignited and caught on fire due to malfunctioning equipment.

The plant is owned by Xcel Energy, though the men were contracted to Xcel through RPI Coating (Robison-Prezioso Inc.), based in California, where all the men were from.

RPI began the job in early September after cracks were found in the concrete; the work was slated to end in November. The 4,050-foot-long pipe is used to pump water from an upper reservoir to a lower reservoir, which turns turbines that create electricity, and later the water is transferred back to the upper reservoir.

On the day of the tragedy nine men were inside the pipe and two outside. Their difficult job entailed sandblasting the concrete and then spraying the epoxy on the twelve-foot-wide pipe.

The epoxy is held in a hopper that keeps it warm so that it can pass easily through a sprayer. The solvent methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) was added to thin the epoxy when it began to thicken.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, MEK is toxic; acute exposure can lead to irritation of the eyes, nose and throat and can produce nausea and headaches. MEK is flammable, heavy and its vapors can travel far in enclosed areas.

According to four of the nine-man team that was 1,400 feet from the lower end of the tunnel, the fire started at around 2 p.m. Survivor Eric Thomas, interviewed by the Denver Post, said: “When it flashed, it was just lucky if you were on the right side of the fire. ... It’s like nothing I’ve ever been through in my life.”

The five men that died were on the other side of the white hot fire and had to flee toward the upper end of the pipe, as the other four ran towards and out of the only accessible entrance/exit.

The Denver Post describes the scene, as reported by survivors to Carolynn Dejaynes, wife of one of the victims. “Flames from the spraying machine were leaping onto Donnie Dejaynes’ sleeves as he tried to shut off a valve on the sprayer, Carolynn Dejaynes said. ... Dejaynes was yelling for the other men to get fire extinguishers, she said. Although they found a few, the extinguishers were useless because they did not have the type of foam that puts chemical fires out.”

Dejaynes “patted a fire out that was burning his clothes and retreated with the four other victims up the tunnel, his wife said. They were trapped where the tunnel takes a steep rise.”

The men were not given oxygen for two and a half hours after the fire started, until it was too late and the men had probably already died. The last communication with the men was around 3:30 p.m. The breathing apparatuses were lowered at 4:30 p.m. and fans were not reversed to draw out the smoke until 5:30 p.m.

Though RPI Coating, Inc. and Xcel both have expressed sympathy for the deaths of the workers, the phony gestures ring hollow as the conditions under which the workers toiled are revealed.

Democratic Governor Bill Ritter’s exclamations of a “thorough” investigation mean very little as well, as early in his first term he vetoed a bill that would have eliminated one of two votes needed to win union recognition.

Family members question the conditions of the tunnel. Some told the Denver Post that the men’s supervisor told them not to enter the tunnel the day before the accident because it was unsafe.

There was only one feasible way out of the tunnel and no escape ladders on the upper end. The accessible exit was at the lower end of the tunnel. The men that died were above the fire and their attempts to escape were thwarted by a slippery incline.

The Oct. 2 deaths are not the first for RPI. According to the Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA), a worker was crushed to death on the San Francisco Bay Bridge in 2002 when scaffolding collapsed. And in 2001, a paint containment panel that was inadequately secured on the same bridge fell on a passing motorist, killing the person.

In fact, OSHA has noted six violations by RPI within the past seven years. From 1990 to 2000 there were 33 violations, though the company only paid $12,000 in fines. Within the last five years, RPI has been made to pay $64,000 in fines.

In 2001 a worker fell more than 80 feet from a platform. It was found that employees were not properly trained to use harnesses. Nine employees in 2000, and one in 1998, were found to have highly toxic levels of lead in their blood. California OSHA found that the company had not provided proper filters in their respirators. (Denver Post, Oct. 3)

The deaths at the Xcel plant could have been avoided had simple precautions, such as an escape route out of the tunnel, been provided. And while RPI, with its numerous violations, is to blame, so is Xcel—which operates some of the dirtiest power plants in Colorado, Texas and Minnesota and has engaged in market manipulation to increase revenue.

A fact sheet on eronwatchdog.org states: “Investigators have targeted Xcel Energy as part of the federal probe into California’s failed wholesale electricity market and possible price manipulation. Investigators found that traders at Xcel Energy and Mirant discussed ‘games’ to profit from California’s electricity crisis in 2000, including schemes to schedule nonexistent power use and to take advantage of ‘congestion’ payments on California’s overburdened electric grid.”

Ultimately, though, it is the capitalist system and the two parties that do its bidding that are to blame, for it is the system that cares nothing for workers’ safety. Its lackey politicians that refuse to take any necessary measures to prevent tragedies like the one at Xcel are to blame.