CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Poorly planned operating procedures, flawed emergency systems and faulty employee training at the Bayer CropScience Institute plant led to a runaway chemical reaction that killed two workers in August, federal investigators have concluded. Read the OSHA citations

U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials cited Bayer for 13 serious and two repeat violations, following a six-month probe of the explosion and fire in the plant's methomyl unit.

OSHA proposed $143,000 in fines, about half of which was for the two repeat violations of rules that require detailed analysis of the potential hazards of complex chemical manufacturing units.

"Bayer CropScience's failure to conduct the proper hazard analysis of its methomyl unit and failure to properly prepare for emergencies left employees exposed to unnecessary risk and contributed to this unfortunate tragedy," said Jeffrey Funke, area director of OSHA's Charleston office.

In a prepared statement, Bayer plant manager Nick Crosby said the company would be studying the OSHA citations and "dealing with them appropriately."

Bayer has 15 business days to contest the citations before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Maya Nye, a leader of the local group People Concerned About MIC, said, "These citations are on par with what we expected. They indicate that the company cares about their employees about as much as they do for the community."

Plant worker Barry Withrow was killed in the Aug. 28, 2008, explosion, and a second employee, Bill Oxley, died about six weeks later at a burn center in Pittsburgh. Thousands of residents between South Charleston and the Putnam County line were advised to take shelter in their homes.

The explosion occurred in a unit where Bayer makes methomyl, which it then uses to produce Larvin, the company's brand name of the insecticide thiodicarb.

Plant officials had previously said the explosion occurred in a tank that contained a variety of waste products used to make or created in the production of Larvin. The tank was used to recycle these products, with most of them being sent to the plant power house to be burned for energy.

Funke said OSHA investigators found that those chemicals were supposed to be added to the tank in a certain order and in certain amounts. But they were added in the wrong order, and too much methomyl was added, generating more heat and pressure than the tank could withstand, Funke said.

"They refer to it as a runaway, exothermic reaction," Funke said in a Thursday interview.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Poorly planned operating procedures, flawed emergency systems and faulty employee training at the Bayer CropScience Institute plant led to a runaway chemical reaction that killed two workers in August, federal investigators have concluded. Read the OSHA citations

U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials cited Bayer for 13 serious and two repeat violations, following a six-month probe of the explosion and fire in the plant's methomyl unit.

OSHA proposed $143,000 in fines, about half of which was for the two repeat violations of rules that require detailed analysis of the potential hazards of complex chemical manufacturing units.

"Bayer CropScience's failure to conduct the proper hazard analysis of its methomyl unit and failure to properly prepare for emergencies left employees exposed to unnecessary risk and contributed to this unfortunate tragedy," said Jeffrey Funke, area director of OSHA's Charleston office.

In a prepared statement, Bayer plant manager Nick Crosby said the company would be studying the OSHA citations and "dealing with them appropriately."

Bayer has 15 business days to contest the citations before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Maya Nye, a leader of the local group People Concerned About MIC, said, "These citations are on par with what we expected. They indicate that the company cares about their employees about as much as they do for the community."

Plant worker Barry Withrow was killed in the Aug. 28, 2008, explosion, and a second employee, Bill Oxley, died about six weeks later at a burn center in Pittsburgh. Thousands of residents between South Charleston and the Putnam County line were advised to take shelter in their homes.

The explosion occurred in a unit where Bayer makes methomyl, which it then uses to produce Larvin, the company's brand name of the insecticide thiodicarb.

Plant officials had previously said the explosion occurred in a tank that contained a variety of waste products used to make or created in the production of Larvin. The tank was used to recycle these products, with most of them being sent to the plant power house to be burned for energy.

Funke said OSHA investigators found that those chemicals were supposed to be added to the tank in a certain order and in certain amounts. But they were added in the wrong order, and too much methomyl was added, generating more heat and pressure than the tank could withstand, Funke said.

"They refer to it as a runaway, exothermic reaction," Funke said in a Thursday interview.

OSHA investigators found that Bayer had not evaluated what would happen if too much methomyl were added to the tank, and what to do if that hazard occurred. Plant managers never wrote procedures to tell operators what to do "to mitigate a hazardous, uncontrolled decomposition of methomyl" inside the tank, OSHA investigators concluded. The company also did not train employees on how to deal with such an incident.

OSHA also cited Bayer because employees who were assigned after the explosion to clean out equipment that had contained methyl isocyanate, or MIC, were not trained to wear respirators during such work. Also, OSHA cited the company because it did not require air sampling for MIC during this work.

Federal investigators also issued two repeat violations that were not related to the cause of the August explosion.

OSHA had cited Bayer in January 2006 for its "failure to consider all aspects of facility siting" during a safety study of the plant's carbofuran and carbaryl units. Bayer was also cited at the time for ignoring its own 2002 study that recommended preventing certain chemical valves from being open at the same time in the carbaryl unit.

During its investigation of the August explosion, OSHA found violations of the same safety rules, this time related to the methomyl unit.

Inspectors said that the company had not resolved issues related to the unit's structure and equipment, and their possible vulnerability to "heat, pressure waves, overloading, chemical effects, vibration due to powered equipment, soft subsoil, and climatic effects such as freezing, earthquakes and wind."

OSHA also alleged that Bayer was two years overdue to complete a study of whether safety valves on the methomyl reactor "were capable of handling pressure rise from a methomyl decomposition scenario that could result in rupturing the reactor." That citation included a long list of other similar safety studies and improvements that Bayer was long overdue in completing.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com  or 304-348-1702.

Major Institute plant OSHA cases

Here is a list of significant workplace safety cases involving the Institute chemical plant and its various owners:

Source: U.S. Occupational Safety

and Health Administration