THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

That is the per capita figure that OSHA fined the DuPont Corp for failing to provide the necessary safety equipment and training. When 4 workers died at one of DuPonts pesticide plants, OSHA, in its wisdom, decided to fine DuPont $99,000.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) blamed the chemical company DuPont for failing to maintain the safety of workers, a failure that it says led to the death of four workers in November.

The plant manufactures the pesticide Lannate in La Porte, Texas. On the day of the accident, a worker opened a vent line for the poisonous gas methyl mercaptan and unexpectedly released the gas into the air. She died, as did the three workers who tried to come to her aid. None of them were wearing protective respirators, OSHA says.

Those workers “would be alive today had their employer, DuPont, taken steps to protect them,” according to the release announcing the end of the investigation. “Four people lost their lives and their families lost loved ones because DuPont did not have proper safety procedures in place,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health David Michaels. “Had the company assessed the dangers involved, or trained their employees on what to do if the ventilation system stopped working, they might have had a chance.”

OSHA cited the company for 11 safety violates and fined it $99,000. The company has a market capitalization of $63.6 billion and made $34.7 billion in revenue last year. OSHA also identified “scores” of upgrades it has to undertake to prevent future accidents at the plant.

But regulators also let the plant and its safety failures slip through the cracks. It hadn’t been inspected by OSHA since 2007, when it was issued two serious violations for safely managing highly hazardous chemicals and fined $1,700 for one and $1,800 for the other, although the latter was later reduced. It was also out of compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s hazardous waste management and air emissions standards, and the agency brought enforcement actions for violations in 2012 and 2014, which resulted in $117,375 in penalties. And the plant was cited for violating state law at least two dozen times over the last five years for failures related to safety inspections, keeping equipment in working order, and preventing pollution leaks, some of which resulted in fines of a few thousand dollars.

As long as the fines make it cheaper, or as management likes to say "cost effective", to ignore safety equipment and training than to implement it, these accidents will continue to occur and we will continue to see how little value our Masters put on our lives.