CINNAMINSON — For as long as most people can remember, the Hoeganaes manufacturing plant stood tall over River Road. The huge facility manufactured powdered metals for the automotive industry since 1953 and employed hundreds. “It was amazing. It was huge,” said Township Committeeman William “Ben” Young, who has an office across from the company. The plant has been reduced to piles of rubble by demolition crews. “Essentially, they kept the headquarters and the research and development there, but are knocking down all the buildings,” Young said. The demolition continues and has been going on for a couple of months, he said. Hoeganaes ceased its industrial operations in February 2009. At the time, company representatives said the plant was outdated and the cost to modernize it was cost-prohibitive. As recently as 2000, Hoeganaes employed nearly 400 people in Cinnaminson. The numbers began to dwindle dramatically shortly after the turn of the century as the company shifted most of its industrial operations to other plants in and out of the United States. Today, Hoeganaes, which is a subsidiary of GKN, has seven facilities in four countries. Prior to the decision to shut down the manufacturing plant in the township, the company made headlines when the New Jersey Work Environment Council said Hoeganaes and its seven other sites potentially could cause widespread deaths or injuries in the event of a catastrophic accident or terrorist attack. While company representatives did not return a call for comment Thursday, Young said the claim by the environmental organization centered on a tank on the property. The company was also one of nine sites in Burlington County the state sued for damages caused by pollution in 2007. A year earlier, Hoeganaes paid $1.45 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by area boaters, who claimed pollution from the plant caused damage to their vessels’ windshields. The company agreed to settle the lawsuit but admitted no wrongdoing. Young said it’s sad to see another industrial giant leave the area. “I think it’s systematic of what’s going on in this country,” he said. “Our jobs are going south or overseas. We have become part of the rust belt,” referring to the departure of industries in the area such as AFG Glass and Ball Corp. All told, more than 1.2 million square feet of manufacturing space either has been shut down or demolished since 2005. And that means a loss of tax revenue. “That tax base has to be made up by someone,” Young said. (AP) — An investigation into a May explosion and fire that killed three workers at a Gallatin metal powders factory found that a hydrogen gas leak came from a pipe that was not normally meant to be pressurized The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued an $80,000 fine to the Hoeganaes Corp The plant was fined $49,200 just a week before the May 27 accident for violations related to flash fires in January and March that left two workers dead and a third injured Officials at the company's headquarters in Cinnaminson did not immediately return a call requesting comment Hoeganaes released a statement saying it was working to improve safety "to ensure that similar accidents will not happen again." According to the TOSHA report released Monday workers heard a gas leak and called maintenance to investigate The gas pipes were located in a trough under metal floor plates workers attached chains to one of the plates and raised it with a forklift One of the workers told investigators that "as the cover broke loose he witnessed sparks generated along its periphery and immediately there was an explosion and fire." Two employees who had just entered the building reported running back out upon seeing a fireball coming toward them They then saw "the fireball go past the doorway and then they saw a dust cloud in the building that obscured their vision." Chemical Safety Board has found that the hydrogen explosion knocked lose iron dust that had accumulated throughout the building The Safety Board also blamed the two accidents earlier this year on the accumulation of combustible metal dust TOSHA investigators probing the May accident found the trough below the floor contained pipes supplying hydrogen and nitrogen as well as a vent pipe that was routed through the roof and into the atmosphere "The vent pipe was not intended to carry any pressure except during the purging of the furnaces," the report states But that is the pipe that was leaking hydrogen The report found "the most likely reason that the pipe was pressurized was that venting valves were mistakenly opened to purge a furnace and never closed." The vent pipe also was "in a severely corroded condition." The report faults the company for failing to evaluate and plan for the dangers posed by the hydrogen supply and not inspecting or maintaining the gas pipes which were located where they were exposed to water It also faults Hoeganaes for failing to follow its own emergency action plan after the explosion The report instead describes a chaotic scene in which no one was clearly in charge and employees took it upon themselves to fight the fire and rescue colleagues While the report found that "combustible dust did play a role in the fire spreading to other areas of the plant including a maintenance cart that was parked about 20 feet from the hydrogen fire" and contributed to the burns of some of the employees TOSHA did not cite the company for violations related to the dust That's because several of the violations from the January and March accidents refer to the dust accumulation and that citation is still open while Hoeganaes contests it the company said it is developing what it called "an industry leading powder metal dust management system" at the recommendation of outside experts who undertook a comprehensive safety review of the plant Hoeganaes also says it is upgrading the electrical systems replacing the gas and air supply system and upgrading "gas management and hydrogen detection systems." A worker was transported to the hospital after suffering burns in a Sunday incident at Hoeganaes’ Gallatin facility said Gallatin Interim Fire Chief Tommy Dale relating information from the company five Hoeganaes workers died from burn injuries sustained during workplace accidents at the Airport Road manufacturing plant The identity of the worker hurt Sunday and the seriousness of his injuries cannot be disclosed at this time because of privacy laws “We’re still doing an ongoing investigation,” Hoeganaes’ Health and Safety Manager Jeff Williams said Gallatin firefighters responded to a medical call after an industrial incident around noon After emergency crews assessed the worker’s injuries he was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center via ambulance “There was no fire or explosion,” Dale said “We were told it was a normal process that led to the injury I’m waiting to hear back on exactly how the person was injured.” The New Jersey-based Hoeganaes Corp. produces atomized steel and iron powders Reach Dessislava Yankova at 575-7170 and on Twitter @desspor Center for Public Integrity GALLATIN, Tenn. — Small fires were a part of the job at the Hoeganaes Corp. metal powder plant 30 miles northeast of Nashville. By early 2011, some workers later told investigators they had become practiced in beating down the flames with gloved hands or a fire extinguisher The company’s own product fueled the fires. Scrap metal rolls into the rust-colored plant on the town’s industrial periphery and is melted atomized and dried into a fine iron powder sold to makers of car parts powder leaked from equipment and coated ledges and rafters sometimes told his wife how this dust piled up everywhere he said he could hear the telltale popping sound of dust sparking when it touched live electricity Sherburne was called to check out a malfunctioning bucket elevator that totes dust through the plant investigators later concluded — turned the dust cloud into a ball of flame that engulfed Sherburne and a co-worker “He’s burned over 95 percent of his body,” doctors told Sherburne’s wife when she arrived at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s burn unit “He’s not going to live.” Her husband died two days later The fires at the Hoeganaes plant were not over five workers died in accidents that shook this small community Another became a grandfather the day before an explosion caused fatal burns coal and flour sparked fires and explosions more than 450 accidents involving dust have killed nearly 130 workers and injured another 800-plus according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data compiled by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S say these numbers are likely significant understatements Yet a push to issue a rule protecting workers from the danger has stalled in the face of bureaucratic hurdles industry pushback and political calculations said it must “make difficult decisions as to how to best allocate the agency’s limited rulemaking resources.” While addressing dangers like combustible dust and dangerous substances breathed by workers are important it “has placed a great deal of emphasis on broad rulemaking efforts that have the potential to result in fundamental changes [for] safety and health in the workplace.” Representatives for Hoeganaes refused interview requests from the Center for Public Integrity the company has denied violating safety standards at the Tennessee plant where Wiley Sherburne died A dust fire is, in a sense, the result of a perfect storm. The powder has to form a cloud in a confined area and touch an ignition source, such as a spark, flame or overheated pipe. “It’s this unlikeliness that leads people to the false sense of security that it can’t occur,” said John Cholin an engineer who has investigated dust accidents for 30 years and has a consulting firm workers don’t know that the dust lurking on flat surfaces could worker safety advocates and government officials have been sounding alarms for years Steve Sallman, a health and safety official with the United Steelworkers union still thinks about the dust fire 20 years ago that severely burned two of his co-workers at an Iowa plant making tires for agricultural vehicles “It bothers me to this day because it was preventable,” he said Hindsight in the wake of dust explosions has often revealed missed warning signs Rarely does a company develop a dust problem overnight “It goes along for years with the dust building up, building up, and everything’s fine, nobody’s harmed, nobody thinks anything about it,” said Sandra Bennett, an official at the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration which investigated the Hoeganaes accidents Standards to address the danger have existed for more than 85 years but following them is voluntary for many plants enforcement is so haphazard that the association that sets the standards believes this policing duty should be placed in OSHA’s hands The agency seems to agree. In 2009, OSHA announced it was starting the process of issuing a rule to address combustible dust Three years later, the process is still stuck in its early stages, and OSHA has given up on making significant progress this year, moving the topic to its list of “long-term actions.” Some experts point to key impediments OSHA faces: the potential cost of the sweeping rule an anti-regulatory political climate and an increasingly drawn-out rulemaking process Top agency officials refused to explain the rule’s status “Prevention of worker injuries and fatalities from combustible dust remains a priority for the agency.” But developing the rule is “very complex,” and “could affect a wide variety of industries and workplace conditions As a result it has been moved to long-term action to give the agency time to develop the analyses needed to support a cost-effective rule.” News of OSHA’s decision reached Chris Sherburne at the end of January around the first anniversary of her husband’s death Her frustration is shared by victims’ families who have seen other health and safety rules similarly stalled Whether it’s combustible wood dust at a sawmill disease-inducing beryllium at an aluminum smelter or lung-wrecking silica at an iron foundry OSHA allows workers to face conditions that many experts and even the government’s own scientists consider unsafe OSHA’s statement said it is “committed to protecting workers,” but that “numerous steps in the regulatory process mean OSHA cannot issue standards as quickly as it would like.” Documented dust explosions have been killing workers since the late 1800s or earlier and technical publications discussing the hazard date to the early 20th century has examined a handful of major dust accidents and identified disturbing trends Among the catastrophic accidents the board investigated each plant also had a history of small dust fires that did little or no damage and prompted little concern “You have to consider all those fires as close calls for something that could kill somebody,” the board’s chairman “Hoeganaes is precisely the case in point.” periodic small dust fires ignited in certain areas Some employees told state inspectors they put out blazes once or twice a month; others said the fires came about once a week workers had come to accept them as part of the job That changed the January day a dust cloud ignited and fatally burned Wiley Sherburne and Wayne Corley Two months later, investigators found, a worker accidentally knocked loose dust that had collected on a furnace and was engulfed in flames. He leaped off a ladder to safety and survived Then, on May 27, sparks triggered an explosion of hydrogen gas leaking from a pipe, investigators determined. The blast knocked dust loose from the rafters, and some of it ignited as it rained down on workers. “There was so much dust in the air that you could only see the areas where it was burning,” one employee told investigators Last year was not the first time Hoeganaes had experienced the deadly potential of its iron dust The May accident in particular bore “striking similarities” to one that occurred in 1992 at the company’s plant in Riverton Jeffrey Richardson remembers that accident well It left him with third-degree burns covering 97 percent of his body His body is covered with skin grown in a lab; it heals slowly and tears easily “They said my foot and my eyelids were the only place where I wasn’t burned,” he recalled recently “I still to this day have a nurse come every day to dress wounds that I still have ongoing.” Richardson recalls it covering him as he struggled to find an escape route “I could hear it sizzling and cracking,” he said The company contested the 10 serious violations OSHA issued for the fire that burned Richardson and the agency cut the fine from $22,500 to $15,300 Hoeganaes is now contesting the 25 serious violations and $122,900 in fines assessed by the Tennessee regulators after the 2011 accidents in Gallatin Many plants already are required to follow rules addressing combustible dust — at least in theory The National Fire Protection Association a nonprofit group that sets an array of standards and conducts research and training committees of industry officials and experts have updated the association’s combustible dust standards regularly and OSHA often points to them as widely recognized practices when citing violations But two problems limit the standards’ reach: They are optional in many areas Some state and local governments have adopted the NFPA standards as part of their fire codes while others have chosen the International Fire Code which has general guidance on combustible dust and references the NFPA codes without explicitly requiring companies to follow them those charged with enforcing them are typically state or local fire inspectors and inspectors are often ill-equipped to recognize even glaring dust hazards “The rank-and-file first line of code enforcement is totally ignorant of the problem,” Cholin said the fire department’s senior inspector visited the Hoeganaes plant in May 2011 — after the first two fires but before the third including inadequate emergency lighting and the need to keep exit routes clear The department eventually noted dust levels during inspections this January and March Asked if inspectors ever brought up combustible dust with Hoeganaes before last year’s accidents The CSB found a similar pattern after other accident investigations in Indiana and North Carolina: Fire officials had missed dust problems in inspections before deadly accidents Recognizing dangers that could lead to dust fires and explosions also can be a problem for companies and their insurers In investigations of four dust explosions that killed 28 workers the CSB found insurers had missed serious dust hazards during audits in each case In Gallatin, the insurer Allianz did note the potential risks from iron dust in a 2008 audit. Hoeganaes commissioned testing in 2009 and 2010 that showed its dust was combustible. In August 2010, Hoeganaes hired a company to clean up the dust, according to a report by the state inspector examining the January 2011 accident “it was apparent that the employer was not ensuring clean up [sic] was maintained through good housekeeping practices between these cleanings.” Piles of dust up to four inches thick sat on equipment throughout the plant Such breakdowns point to the need for an OSHA standard which could lead to “broader recognition and the potential for stronger enforcement,” said Guy Colonna manager of the NFPA division that oversees the association’s combustible dust standards Still, enforcement by OSHA isn’t a perfect solution. The CSB’s 2006 study found that OSHA inspectors weren’t adequately trained to recognize dust hazards OSHA said it developed a three-and-a-half-day session to train its inspectors to recognize combustible dust hazards in December 2007 But the agency can get to only a fraction of the plants that may have dust problems Since October 2007, OSHA has been targeting plants that may have dust problems through a special enforcement program the agency and its state counterparts have conducted more than 2,800 inspections Asked for an estimate of the number of plants that meet the criteria for inspection under the program OSHA said the total was likely “in tens of thousands.” Applying the program without a combustible dust standard in place means inspectors must resort to issuing citations for rules not written to address dust electrical safety rules might form the basis for a citation OSHA can use the “general duty clause” to cite companies for exposing workers to well-known dangers not addressed by specific standards often leaves the agency vulnerable to industry challenge Consider Hoeganaes: The last time the plant was inspected by the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration before the 2011 fires was in 2008. The inspector, Dave McMurray, visited the plant after the agency received information that a few workers had suffered hearing loss — problems for which he ended up citing the company he saw enough iron dust collecting around the plant to cause concern he felt his only option was to see whether workers were breathing levels of dust that might pose a health risk — a hazard for which there was a standard The monitors measured only what was in the air near the workers at the time not what had collected on ledges and rafters McMurray felt there was little he could do “It’s a whole world of difference when we have a standard,” he said After the fires in 2011, state regulators drew on a variety of standards to cite Hoeganaes shoddy maintenance of the hydrogen pipe that leaked in May and an inadequate emergency response plan They accused the company of allowing dust to build up throughout the plant and failing to train workers on its dangers Hoeganaes contested every citation. Among the legal arguments the company has raised: State officials are trying to enforce a combustible dust rule that doesn’t exist Four years ago, Jamie Butler sat on a curb outside the burning wreckage of the packing building at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Ga., an industrial hub near Savannah. His brother sat beside him. They’d escaped one of the worst dust explosions in U.S Sugar dust had exploded in a conveyor belt then triggered blasts throughout the plant Dust that had built up over the years fueled the explosions and rained down on Butler and his co-workers Butler had found a hole that had been blown in the wall and made it before emergency responders loaded Butler into one ambulance and his brother into another “That was the last time I ever saw my brother,” Butler said The disaster killed 14 people — including Butler’s brother and uncle a longtime plant employee — and left dozens burned remained in a coma for months; he has severe burns on his head I’ll be in the hospital on a regular basis The blast was the type of catastrophe that can spur reform. Congress held a hearing “It is past time to issue a standard to prevent these kinds of accidents.” Even before Imperial Sugar, the CSB had investigated a series of deadly dust accidents and recommended in 2006 that OSHA issue a rule to protect workers from dust fires and explosions. After investigating the disaster in Port Wentworth, the board again urged OSHA to act This time, OSHA appeared to be listening. It launched a special enforcement program targeting companies with unaddressed dust problems. In April 2009, the agency announced it was starting the rulemaking process “We felt that our efforts had paid off,” CSB chairman Moure-Eraso said recently And there are more accidents; there are more fatalities Long rulemaking processes have become the norm for OSHA. For the 58 significant standards the agency has issued since 1981, the average time from beginning the process to finalizing the rule was almost eight years, a recent study by the Government Accountability Office found federal agencies must navigate a complicated process that includes multiple rounds of review — both internally and at the White House’s budget office — and public comment New laws and executive orders have added requirements over the past three decades The agency must show that a proposed rule is both technically and economically feasible for every industry that would be affected — a research-intensive task If a rule could affect a significant number of small businesses OSHA must convene a panel and allow them to raise objections to an unpublished rule draft It is one of only three federal agencies required to do this OSHA is particularly vulnerable to legal challenges after issuing a standard agencies must prove to a judge that a rule isn’t arbitrary must show its rule is supported by “substantial evidence in the record considered as a whole” — a much higher standard All of this means addressing combustible dust is a mammoth task OSHA has to research the dangers of everything from the coal dust at a power plant to the wood dust at a sawmill then show that addressing the danger would be realistic in each case The rule would affect many small businesses and OSHA said in a statement that it plans to convene the required small-business panel this year The American Chemistry Council has taken a harder line “We believe that the accidents that have occurred might have been prevented if current OSHA regulations and relevant combustible dust consensus standards had been followed and enforced,” the council wrote to the Center Some see the political climate — in which the phrase “job-killing regulation” is never far from the discussion — as one explanation for the slow progress. “OSHA has its heart in the right place; we know that they’re struggling with this,” said Robyn Robbins, a safety and health official with the United Food and Commercial Workers union “It’s just a shame that people make this political.” Many arguments echo those made 30 years ago during a tussle that led to a standard now widely considered a success story a series of deadly grain dust explosions at grain elevators and similar facilities attracted national attention OSHA announced in 1980 that it was considering a rule to regulate the handling of grain dust Large industry trade groups and small grain elevator operators objected vociferously. The National Grain and Feed Association called the rule “unwarranted” in comments to OSHA and said it “could have a substantial economic impact on the grain and feed industry without substantially improving the safety or health of workers.” deaths in grain dust explosions dropped by 70 percent and injuries by 60 percent In 2010, the National Grain and Feed Association — the same group that had sued OSHA to try to block parts of the rule — noted this “unprecedented decline in explosions injuries and fatalities at grain handling facilities” in comments submitted to OSHA Nor did meeting the rule’s requirements ruin the industry The association cited the “economic benefit of implementing the grain handling standard” and wrote “We firmly believe that there is overwhelming evidence supporting the grain handling standard’s effectiveness in preventing fires and explosions and resulting injuries during a time when grain handling capacity increased almost sixty percent.” OSHA’s current attempts to address combustible dust are more complicated encompassing many different industries with different types of dust But some view the grain dust rule as an example of what could be accomplished “A general industry standard does have the potential to be at least as successful [as the grain dust standard] in terms of awareness, but how successful depends on the specifics of the regulation,” said Bob Zalosh a consultant who investigates accidents and advises companies on prevention Some in Congress want OSHA to act now. California Rep. George Miller and two other House Democrats have introduced a bill that would require the agency to issue an interim rule within a year “The fact that workers are killed and injured in all too frequent clearly preventable combustible dust explosions shows that Congress must act,” Miller said in a statement to the Center “Legislation is needed to protect workers because of the years it takes to cut through the red tape just to get a final protection in place.” the building Jamie Butler and his co-workers knew during their time at Imperial Sugar is long gone consumed entirely by the inferno of February 2008 In its place is a modern packing facility company officials say stands as evidence of what they learned from the disaster which included some work on the refinery itself took about two years and cost roughly $220 million vice president of manufacturing Raylene Carter said “If there is ever an explosion again — and that’s just not going to happen — it would never spread from building to building ever again,” Imperial Sugar health and safety official Kathleen Gonzalez said during a recent tour pointing to a system designed to blanket the area with water and halt a fire in its tracks Sugar no longer enters the packing building on a conveyor belt — the location of the initial explosion in 2008 It is shot through pipes in pellets packed so densely that they shouldn’t be able to ignite Sensors can detect the first signs of sparks in the pipes then automatically isolate the area and flood it with a neutralizing solution vacuums take spilled dust to a vessel outside the building — a contrast from the company’s previous practice of using compressed air to clean dust which blew it onto ledges and rafters where it eventually was shaken loose “Your job is not complete until your work area is CLEAN.” The company has told OSHA it “strongly support[s]” issuing a combustible dust rule “We believe that there is still a low level of knowledge of the extent of hazards of combustible dust in industry,” the company wrote OSHA Such about-faces often come after deaths have occurred — and company officials inspectors or auditors missed warning signs The NFPA’s Colonna said he is frequently called to conduct training after explosions — in Georgia after the Imperial Sugar catastrophe and in Kentucky after a 2003 dust explosion killed seven workers the Gallatin Fire Department’s two inspectors attended a two-day training seminar on combustible dust led by the NFPA OSHA cited a Wisconsin company that makes whey products the agency issued violations to a New Hampshire wood pellet mill where a dust-fueled fire spread throughout the building the agency alleged violations – some of them willful which OSHA says are intentional violations or those committed with indifference to the law – at an Illinois pasta manufacturer where two workers were seriously burned in a sugar dust explosion “I think the universal theme is that these accidents are a symptom of the fact that there isn’t a comprehensive dust standard,” said Daniel Horowitz “Hoeganaes really illustrates how problems like this can fall through the cracks at every level.” dust piled up for years despite inspections “They need a set of guidelines,” Chris Sherburne said I think that would have made a lot of difference because there was so much [dust] there at the time.” she’s raising a teenage son and tending to a 34-acre patch of farmland She hasn’t given up on some of the plans she and Wiley made They had always hoped to build a new house on their land to replace their double-wide and in December 2010 — about a month before his death — they’d decided to start the following spring “I decided to just build it and see what happens,” she said recently Chris and her son moved into their new house No pictures of Wiley adorn the walls or mantelpieces “It’s easier for us not to have stuff in plain view,” Chris said at first the ashes sat on Chris’ bedroom dresser ‘Wiley I can’t look at you every day; I can’t do this.’ He’s in the closet now.” Chris and her son have kept his tools and work clothes keepsakes of the man who could fix anything and he’d put it back together,” Chris recalled the plan was for Wiley to help him find a clunker and fix it up he now drives his father’s souped-up Dodge Ram 2500 when I see it coming up the driveway,” Chris said “for a split second I still think it’s Wiley.” The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit investigative news organization focused on inequality in the U.S We do not accept advertising or charge people to read our work This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License five workers died and three were injured in three separate accidents at the same Gallatin All three accidents had the same basic trigger—the ignition of combustible dust That’s the conclusion of an investigative report by the Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) 5 press conference near the Tennessee plant owned by Hoeganaes Corp “These three accidents were entirely preventable,” says CSB Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso three of the four most deadly accidents it has investigated have been combustible dust explosions A 2006 CSB study found that 281 industrial dust accidents had occurred over a 25-year period A more recent study by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration found that during the past decade combustible dust fires and ACS’s Basic Package keeps you connected with C&EN and ACS $80 Regular Members & Society Affiliates ACS’s Standard Package lets you stay up to date with C&EN ACS’s Premium Package gives you full access to C&EN and everything the ACS Community has to offer A more recent study by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration found that during the past decade combustible dust fires and explosions killed an average of seven workers each year OSHA officials acknowledge the actual number might be higher as the agency does not closely track these accidents (C&EN it urged OSHA to issue enforceable workplace standards for combustible dust OSHA announced it would begin this process indus trial combustible dust remains unregulated Although Tennessee OSHA (TOSHA) cited Hoeganaes for 35 violations and issued fines of $123,000 following the fatal accidents combustible dust is only mentioned three times in the citation—for unsanitary plant conditions failure to train workers to address dust issues and dust buildup covering valve and piping labels TOSHA found up to four inches of dust accumulation The firm is an international manufacturer of a fine iron powder (45–150 μm) used to make parts for the auto industry The Tennessee facility was built in 1978 and employs 180 workers The plant has a history of combustible dust problems according to CSB investigator Johnnie Banks who notes company documents show dust fires occurred as far back as 1992 The first in the series of 2011 accidents happened on Jan when a dust explosion killed two maintenance workers who were trying to repair a bucket conveyor which was ignited by a spark from the restarted motor One worker died within hours; the other lived for four months before succumbing to burns A second dust-related accident on March 29 injured one worker It occurred after dust was lofted and ignited during a furnace maintenance operation The worst of the three accidents occurred on May 27 when dust and hydrogen sparked an explosion and fire that killed three more workers and injured two It took place just 16 days after CSB had conducted an investigative hearing at Gallatin Leaking hydrogen from a corroded pipe likely generated the initial blast that blew iron powder into the plant air where it ignited and rained down on the workers and seven weeks later the final death occurred workers reported flash fires as well as smoke and dust so thick that visibility was limited to 3 to 4 feet it was difficult to specifically determine which fuel—if not both—directly caused the fatalities the board found an unenclosed system to transport the iron powder and numerous flat overhead surfaces where dust could accumulate which is used in the powder manufacturing process The board’s primary recommendation was that OSHA propose the long-delayed dust regulation within a year OSHA says it is working on completing the dust regulation The agency says in a statement that it is developing additional regulatory alternatives and doing economic analyses for a required review under the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act the agency says it will issue a proposed rule OSHA adds that it is not under a firm timeline and notes it will offer additional opportunities for comments before finalizing the rule Hoeganaes does not cite dust as the three accidents’ cause and says they were unrelated accidents It claims the plant “historically had a very strong safety record” but is now making several improvements including developing “an industry-leading powder metal dust management system.” The company voluntarily shut down briefly after the third accident but began to restart last July TOSHA did not call for the shutdown or oversee the start-up Along with the Jan. 5 report, CSB released a 14-minute video explaining the accident’s cause and impact; it begins with the wife of one of the workers killed in the factory recounting her first visit to the hospital This article has been sent to the following recipient: Sign up for C&EN's must-read weekly newsletter Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society — Three workers were critically burned Friday at a Middle Tennessee chemical plant just one day after company officials attended the funeral of one of two workers killed in an earlier fire The Friday fire injured a total of five workers and was the third this year at the Hoeganaes (HAY'-gan-eez) Corp The plant employs about 175 people making metal powders for automotive and industrial uses The two previous accidents occurred after flammable dust accumulated in the air and combusted Chemical Safety Board in findings two weeks ago Investigator-in-Charge Johnnie Banks criticized the company for knowing of the danger the dust posed and not adequately addressing it it found 2- to 3-inch layers of dust on surfaces throughout the facility and dust was visible in the air Gallatin Assistant Fire Chief Tommy Dale said the latest fire was caused by a gas leak Both the Tennessee Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Chemical Safety Board are investigating Hoeganaes Vice President of Human Resources Mike Mattingly was in town to attend the Thursday funeral the employee who succumbed last week to his burns from the January flash fire Mattingly said the company was "devastated" by the latest accident "Our number one concern in priority is the affected employees and their families," he said Dale said the fire occurred in the furnace room of the plant He said this was different from the one in January 31 flash fire occurred as two maintenance mechanics on the overnight shift inspected a broken bucket elevator that was downstream of a furnace the movement lofted combustible iron dust into the air The dust ignited and flames engulfed the workers The second on March 29 happened when a plant engineer was replacing igniters on a furnace and inadvertently dislodged combustible iron dust The dust engulfed him and ignited a fireball Banks said in the news release that the accumulation of metal dust at the factory "was of particular concern as metal dust flash fires present a greater burn injury threat than flammable gas or vapor flash fires Metal dust fires have the potential to radiate more heat and some metals burn at extremely high temperatures." There was no question the company knew much of the dust was combustible Company documents showed that last year Hoeganaes submitted 23 dust samples from the Gallatin facility to an independent laboratory and 14 were found to be combustible Investigators also found that the company had documented multiple reports of flash fires during repairs on furnace belts at their facility in Cinnaminson Someone was killed in a 1996 accident there and an accident in 2000 injured two others TOSHA earlier this week issued $42,900 in citations to Hoeganaes after an investigation into the January and March accidents found 12 serious violations But neither TOSHA nor its federal counterpart Occupational Safety and Health Administration The TOSHA citations that mention the dust at the plant cite rules about workplace cleanliness and employee training The Chemical Safety Board in 2006 recommended that OSHA develop a standard to address combustible dust explosions the agency agreed and it is currently in the early stages of rulemaking