WPAC Report Lack of concern Despite dust explosion tragedies, many mills fail inspections. By Gordon Murray t has been more than two years since the January and April 2012 explosions that destroyed the Babine and Lakeland sawmills in central British Columbia, tragi-cally killing four workers, injuring forty-four more, and putting hundreds out of work. Investigations by WorkSafe BC (WSBC) and BC Safety Authority (BCSA) determined that both explosions were preventable, having been caused by inef-fective control of combustible dust. Each mill was cutting beetle-killed pine, which produces a considerably greater volume of wood dust and much finer dust than I “Surely employers must understand by now the catastrophic consequences of a dust explosion and the means of prevention...” from cutting green wood. Suspended dust, confined space, oxygen, and an ignition source combined to cause both explo-sions. Regulators and forest industry lead-ership responded swiftly and aggressively. WSBC developed a combustible dust strategy to cover all categories of wood processing plants. Their strategy included reminding employers of their obligations under the Workers’ Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Regulation and advancing a com-bustible dust management program for employers, consisting of facility risk as-sessment, development of a combustible dust management plan and employee training. WSBC issued orders for all em-ployers to clean combustible dust in their plants and followed with four successive phases of inspections to assess compliance. Similarly, BCSA (administrator of the Safety Standards Act) issued a safety or-der regarding combustible dust to 403 active and inactive sawmills, pulp and paper mills, pellet mills, remanufactur-ing mills, and other wood processors. Forest industry leaders formed the Manu-facturers’ Advisory Group (MAG) to focus on industry efforts with respect to com-bustible dust. MAG engaged FPInnova-tions to improve industry’s understanding of dust sampling, analysis and explosibil-ity and to provide an analysis of how to apply National Fire Protection Associ-ation standards to wood processing plants. MAG also de-veloped a dust audit tool and set about organizing work-shops and other edu-cational resources for industry members. WSBC, BCSA, MAG, the BC Office of the Fire Commissioner, and the Steelworkers Union formed the Fire Inspection and Pre-vention Initiative to enable multi-stake-holder cooperation and to provide man-agement and worker training. Yet, given the experience of the Babine and Lakeland tragedies, it is extremely dis-tressing that a significant number of wood processing plants (including pellet plants) continue to fail regulatory inspections. BCSA reported in March that 34 per cent of plants failed their safety inspections due to inadequate dust management plans; dust accumulations adjacent to electrical and gas equipment; lack of understanding of the level of dust that is hazardous; and poor housekeeping. Similarly, fully 61 of 144 employer lo-cations were not in regulatory compliance during WSBC’s third phase of inspection and 93 orders were issued in relation to combustible dust. Most orders were for “unacceptable levels of dust accumula-tions outside normal production areas; i.e. basements, crawl spaces, overhead areas, areas hidden behind motor control centres or cabinets, and outside areas.” While WSBC and BCSA acknowledge that many employers have made substan-tial progress at implementing systems and equipment to control combustible dust, the number of non-compliant employer locations is simply unacceptable. Surely employers must understand by now the catastrophic consequences of a dust ex-plosion and the means of prevention. It is beyond comprehension that combustible dust remains a crisis issue to be solved. Recently, B.C. Crown prosecutors an-nounced their intention not to pursue criminal charges relating to the Babine or Lakeland explosions. This caused a wave of public protest putting the B.C. govern-ment and WSBC under extreme pressure to prevent such injuries and loss of life from ever happening again. Yet, a sub-stantial portion of our industry remains non-compliant with respect to combusti-ble dust and the risk of another mill explo-sion remains substantial. And now, given our experience and all we have learned, the consequences would be unimaginable. For more on combustible dust and the new regulations, go to http://www.wood-business.ca/harvesting/dust-control. • Gordon Murray is executive director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada. He encourages all those who want to support and benefit from the growth of the Ca-nadian wood pellet industry to join. Gordon welcomes all comments and can be contacted by telephone at 250-837-8821 or by email at [email protected]. JULY/AUGUST 2014 10 Canadian BIOMASS
Canadian Biomass July August 2014: Page 10
