Engineering firm fined over safety breach

A north east engineering firm has been fined for deliberately compromising the safety guards on machinery for production reasons.
South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court heard H. Mullins (Earby) Limited, which produces precision engineered components, used Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machines as part of the production process, including machining centres, milling machines and drilling machines.
The guards on the machines comprise of a sliding door which is interlocked. In February this year, a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector found the interlocks had been deliberately defeated on three CNC machining centres and a CNC milling machine and the interlock was broken ona CNC drilling machine.
HSE prosecuting told the court this action allowed employees to access dangerous parts of the machines during automatic CNC operations leading to a risk of serious injury.
The court heard the company had been served with HSE Improvement Notices following an inspection in 2008 and a letter sent in 2012 highlighting similar issues.
HSE inspector Fiona McGarry said after the hearing: “The deliberate defeating of safety devices in any workplace is not acceptable.
“This company had received advice on two previous occasions in relation to the guarding standards on CNC machines and had not taken appropriate action.
“HSE will not hesitate to take enforcement action against companies who continually flout health and safety law and put their employees at risk.”
Mullins (Earby) Limited of Western Rd, Jarrow, Tyne and Wear pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £13,500 with £1,439.10 costs.

Total fined £1.4m after fatal UK refinery fire

Total UK Limited has been fined £1.4 million after a major fire led to the death of a worker at an oil refinery in North Lincolnshire. Twenty-four year old Robert Greenacre from Grimsby was working near a crude oil distillation unit just before the fire broke out at the Lindsey Oil Refinery (TLOR) in Immingham on 29th June 2010.

Lindsey Refinery - Photo: Andy Beecroft

The Health and Safety Executive prosecuted the oil giant after an investigation found a fire was caused by an uncontrolled release of crude oil.
Hull Crown Court heard today on July 29 that Greenacre who was a contracted fitter was working with a colleague beneath a distillation column containing hot crude oil. The job required them to open equipment beneath the column. When an item of equipment was opened, the crude oil was released. A short time later it ignited. A colleague was able to escape the scene suffering minor burns, but Greenacre did not escape and died beneath the column.
The court also heard operators of major accident hazard establishments must have in place a functioning system of risk assessment for all tasks where hazardous substances could be released.
Operators should always try to eliminate risk through hazard avoidance. In many circumstances this could be achieved by carrying out the task during shut-down conditions. Where this is not practicable, the highest achievable levels of isolation to industry standards are required.
Total UK Limited of One Euston Square, 40 Melton Street, London, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 4 of the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH) and was fined £1.4 million and ordered to pay costs £34,084.05.
Speaking after the hearing HSE Inspector John Moran said:
“If Total had followed well established principles of risk assessment this major fire and the subsequent fatal injury to Robert Greenacre could have been easily prevented.
“Although the accident arose from a simple task, the magnitude of the risk was great. The risk should have been identified before the task started, and action taken to either eliminate or control it. This did not happen.
“Total UK Limited as operator in control of a major accident hazard establishment fell far short of the standard required of them.
“This tragic incident should serve as a reminder to all such operators that if they fail to assess the risks associated with even simple and routine maintenance tasks, the consequences can be severe, and irreparable to the people involved and their families”.

Business partners fined following worker injured in explosion

Northallerton Magistrates, 4 August,  heard how the explosion at Mason Engineering on 18 November 2013 happened as they were transferring oxygen between pressurised cylinders. The partners had rigged up a make-shift hose fitting that was not designed for the high risk procedure.
Debris built up in the end of the hose, causing it to overheat and ignite in the oxygen.
One of their workers, aged 48 at time of incident, was caught in the blast and suffered life changing injuries when he was blinded in his left eye and lost his left thumb and forefinger.
Samuel Trevor Mason and Shaun Christopher Mason, both of Blackhorse Lane Swainby, Northallerton both pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and were fined £4000 each and ordered to pay costs of £1171/15 each.
HSE Inspector Geoff Fletcher said:
“This was an accident that should never have happened. Trevor and Shaun Mason admitted to developing their own practice rather than following the manufacturer’s guidelines. Unfortunately their employee has to live with the permanent consequences of their failure to consider the risks of transferring oxygen with in house manufactured components”
IOSH Managing Safely

World leaders finalise new sustainable development goals

The UN’s 193 member states have reached agreement on a new set of sustainable development goals that aim to protect the environment, achieve gender equality, end poverty and promote prosperity by 2030.
The agreement includes 17 new sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, and builds on the success of the millennium development goals, which were adopted in 2000 and have helped more than 700 million people out of poverty.
Announcing the agreement, UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon said: “This is the people’s agenda, a plan of action for ending poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere, and leaving no one behind. It seeks to ensure peace and prosperity, and forge partnerships with people and planet at the core.”
The UN says the goals and targets aim to tackle key “systemic barriers to sustainable development such as inequality, unsustainable consumption and production patterns, inadequate infrastructure and lack of decent jobs.”  The environment dimension is covered in the goals on oceans and marine resources and on ecosystems and biodiversity. These include ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns (goal 12); urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (13); and sustainably managing forests, combatting desertification, halting and reversing land degradation, and halting biodiversity loss (15).
CRS’S Head of Environment highlighted ‘the new ISO 14001: 2015 requires organisations to consider the wider business context, and announcements such as these give organisation a direction as to the key political elements to consider over the longer term’
Environmental NGOs and civil society groups have been actively involved in the development of the new SDGs over the past two years.
Groups, including Christian Aid, Practical Action, Greenpeace, CAFOD, WWF, CARE and Oxfam cited the need for the new SDGs to focus on climate change. The new agenda acknowledges the UN’s framework convention on climate change as the primary international forum for negotiations and includes a commitment to “address decisively the threat posed by climate change and environmental degradation.”
UN chef de cabinet, Susana Malcorra, described the agreement as "historic" but warned that the work ahead is immense. "The sheer size, the depth and the complexity of this agenda challenges all of us, challenges the UN," she said.
The agreement will be officially declared at the UN’s 70th anniversary in New York in September

Illegal waste site gets £18k penalty

Recycling and skip-hire business Eastside 2000 (E2L) has been fined £18,000 for illegally storing waste at site in Hereford. E2L was also ordered to pay costs of £7,732. The firm pleaded guilty at Hereford magistrates’ court to storing demolition waste at the site, which has no environmental permit.

The court was told that, in June 2012, the Environment Agency ordered the waste to be removed. At the time, the agency agreed to halt legal action until the outcome of the planning application by E2L to build a waste washing facility at the site. Permission was refused in March 2013 and the agency reinstated its enforcement action. By the end of January 2014, the date for final compliance with the notice, agency officers found the site still contained around 12,000 tonnes of waste. By August 2014, half the waste remained. Magistrates ordered the site to be cleared within three months.

New higher environmental fines appeal ruling

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the sentence imposed on Thames Water Utilities for allowing untreated sewage to enter a brook running through a nature reserve was proportionate.
Reading crown court fined the company £250,000 in September 2014 in one of the first cases to reflect the sentencing guidelines for environmental offences that came into force on 1 July last year.
The guidelines introduced four categories of offence that relate to the level of harm caused. Also considered is the offender’s culpability – was it deliberate, reckless or negligent, or whether it committed with little or no fault on the part of the organisation.
Thames Water pleaded guilty to allowing sewage to enter The Chases, a nature reserve near Newbury, from an emergency overflow pipe at its Broad Layings sewage pumping station on 2 September 2012. The Environment Agency said the discharge had been caused by a blockage in the pumps at the station on 29 August 2012 and that Thames Water had failed to act on the alarms system to attend and unblock them.
At the earlier hearing, the judge, recorder Arbuthnot, said: “The parties agree that the level of culpability is negligence and with which I agree. With regards to harm I find that this is a category 3 offence but at the severe end.” The starting point for fines for negligent, category 3 offences committed by firms with a turnover of at least £50 million is £60,000, rising to £150,000. The courts, however, can impose financial penalties outside this range for large companies by considering whether the fine is proportionate to the means of the offender.
The court of appeal agreed the fine was proportionate. The judges also referred to Thames Water’s record as a repeat offender, warning: “To bring the message home to the directors and shareholders of organisations which have offended negligently more than once before, a substantial increase in the level of fines, sufficient to have a material impact on the finances of the company as a whole, will ordinarily be appropriate. This may therefore result in fines measured in millions of pounds.”
Anne Brosnan, deputy director of legal services at the Environment Agency, said: “This sentence should act as a deterrent. In fact, the court said that it would have upheld a very substantially higher fine in this case.”

Global Energy Firm fined £1.4m after worker killed in refinery fire

Total UK Limited have been fined £1.4 million after a major fire led to the death of a worker at an oil refinery in North Lincolnshire.

Twenty-four year old Robert Greenacre from Grimsby was working near a crude oil distillation unit just before the fire broke out at the Lindsey Oil Refinery (TLOR) in Immingham on 29^th June 2010.

The Health and Safety Executive prosecuted the oil giant after an investigation found a fire was caused by an uncontrolled release of crude oil.

Hull Crown Court heard on 29^th July 2015 that Mr Greenacre who was a contracted fitter was working with a colleague beneath a distillation column containing hot crude oil. The job required them to open equipment beneath the column. When an item of equipment was opened, the crude oil was released. A short time later it ignited. Mr Greenacre’s colleague was able to escape the scene suffering minor burns, Robert did not escape and died beneath the column.  

 The court also heard operators of major accident hazard establishments must have in place a functioning system of risk assessment for all tasks where hazardous substances could be released.

Operators should always try to eliminate risk through hazard avoidance. In many circumstances this could be achieved by carrying out the task during shut-down conditions. Where this is not practicable, the highest achievable levels of isolation to industry standards are required.

NEBOSH Fire Safety & Risk Management