[itsmycock]

Widow Urges an End to a Deadly Construction Practice

By RUSS BUETTNER and ROBERT DAVEY

The plea from the widow of one of six workers killed by an explosion at a Connecticut power plant in February was poignant and sincere, but also sadly familiar.

Less than a year before the explosion, in Middletown, a similar blast, in June 2009 at the ConAgra Foods Slim Jim plant in Garner, N.C., killed four workers and injured 67. A 1999 explosion at a power plant in Dearborn, Mich., killed six.

Jodi M. Thomas, the widow of Ronald J. Crabb, who was killed in the blast at the power plant in Middletown, implored lawmakers last week to do something to prevent the same deadly and seemingly predictable outcome from claiming more lives.

“I urge you to not allow Ron’s death to be in vain,” Ms. Thomas said at a special Congressional hearing held in Middletown on Monday. “Failing to make good come from this would be the biggest tragedy of all.”

Federal safety investigators said last week that the explosion in Middletown, at the construction site for Kleen Energy Systems, was only the latest example of a common industrial practice that can be deadly: clearing pipes with natural gas.

Yet despite the obvious risks, no federal regulations define how the procedure should take place.

At the hearing, John S. Bresland, a member of the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, called the lack of rules a “significant gap” that “threatens the continued safety of workers at facilities that handle flammable natural gas.”

The board urged the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue regulations to make venting natural gas outdoors safer and to prohibit the release of natural gas indoors.

The safety board investigates such incidents but cannot itself issue regulations.

“We consider these recommendations urgent because 125 gas-powered plants are planned over the next five years, including six in Connecticut,” Mr. Bresland told members of a subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee at the hearing.

The board also recommended that the National Fire Protection Association, an independent organization that sets standards adopted in many jurisdictions, require the use of “inherently safer alternatives” to flammable gas for cleaning pipes, like compressed air or nitrogen.

A spokesman for OSHA said in an interview that the agency would wait to act until its own investigation was complete; it is expected to be finished in October or later.

Construction at the Kleen Energy site has resumed. The contractor, O & G Industries, released a statement saying that it would adopt all of the safety board’s new recommendations and would require its subcontractors to do the same.

The Middletown explosion happened when pipes to the gas-fired generators were being purged of construction debris with natural gas, which was vented rapidly into a courtyard-like area that probably kept the gas from rapidly disbursing, the Chemical Safety Board found.

Safety board investigators found that about two million cubic feet of natural gas was released that day, enough to provide heating and cooking fuel to a typical American home for more than 25 years. The board determined that significantly more gas was used than what was needed to clear the pipes.

The directions workers received were uneven, the board found. Some workers were cleared from the area, but inside the main building, more than 50 kept working, only 15 of whom were involved in the purging process.

A few workers left the main building on their own when they smelled gas. All six workers who died were inside the main building, the findings said.

While the safety board said some efforts were made to clear possible ignition sources, many remained, including active welding and diesel-fueled heaters. Even the debris shooting out from the piping could have created sparks, the board found.

“I find it quite — I’m not sure what word to use — bizarre, that a company will spend millions to start a project, then use this inherently dangerous process and blow it up and kill people,” Mr. Bresland said to the committee.

State investigations into the explosion are continuing.

Alan H. Nevas, a retired Federal District Court judge who was appointed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut to lead a state commission investigating the explosion, said the contractor at the Middletown plant stood to collect a bonus if work were finished by May 31. He said the effects that such bonuses have on safety measures should be examined.

Mr. Nevas suggested that creating laws or regulations on the state level would be much quicker than waiting for the process at OSHA, which Mr. Bresland of the safety board said could take up to five years.

But the representatives on the panel said they preferred the uniformity of federal action and suggested that Congress might take up legislation.

“If we act this time, we can help ensure that the Middletown explosion is one of the last of its kind,” said Representative Rosa L. DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/ny...1&ref=nyregion