OSHA notifies depot of unsafe working conditions
By Ryan Garrett/Register News Writer

One of the largest employers in the county, home to more than 500 tons of chemical weapons and many times more conventional munitions, has been cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for unsafe working conditions.

The Blue Grass Army Depot, which employs about 1,500, received a "Notice of Unsafe or Unhealthful Working Conditions" on Wednesday for seven items concerning defencies in emergency response and evacuation and related training.

The citation stems from a Dec. 1 and 2 visit by OSHA inspectors. It does not involve the Blue Grass Chemical Activity, the 250-acre area on the depot where chemical weapons are stored.

"We had a complaint that surfaced during the last year during different public meetings that there was not sufficient training" for employees in the event of a chemical incident, said Dave Easter, depot public affairs officer.

That complaint was filed with OSHA and resulted in the inspection, Easter said.

According to the citation, the depot did not adequately implement portions of its Disaster Control Plan pertaining to emergency response training for exercises and drills.

"No appreciable effort was made to conduct required training or exercises/drills for all employees on site," the citation states.

The depot did not make its emergency action plan available to employees for review, and employees did not know that any such plan existed, according to the second item.

Other items cite the depot for not reviewing its emergency action plan with employees when they were initially assigned to a job, when their responsibilities changed, or when the plan changed.

Also, the emergency evacuation plan did not inlcude evacuation routes or types of exit route assignments for employees, and the depot did not have a working procedure to account for all employees after an emergency evacuation or drill, according to other items.

All items listed in the citation say the conditions "exposed employees to possible injury, illness and death," and all violation typs were listed as "serious."

OSHA defines a serious violation as "one in which there is a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could results, and the employer knew or should have known of the hazard."

"OSHA says we have not done a complete exercise for evacuation of the installation, and that's true," Easter said. "Every day before we start our operations, we determine what the risk assessment is for the installation and what our emergency procedures need to be for if something happens."

The depot has not focused full-scale evacuations because it would rather concentrate its efforts a well-coordinated evacuation of potentially afflicted areas on the installation during an incident, Easter said.

Craig Williams, director of the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, said he has heard similar complaints to the one filed with OSHA for several years.

"It's pretty astonishing that we would spend about $70 million on off-site emergency preparation, and, according to this document, it looks like people on-site are ill-prepared to react, should there be an incident," Williams said.

"I was aware there were some problems," he said. "I didn't realize the, apparently, almost complete lack of response preparedness on the site. Everybody realizes the probably (of an incident) is low, but you prepare just in case."

By law, the notice must be posted in a prominent place where it is readily observable by all affected employees. It must remain posted for three days or until the violations are abated, whichever is longer.

Depot officials have until April 11 to come into compliance with the regulations, unless they request an informal conference with the U.S. Department of Labor area office in Frankfort by early March.

That deadline puts depot officials in a tight spot.

"We know we have not completed what OSHA thinks we should have and we're willing to address that," Easter said.

But the depot has other considerations to deal with as well.

"We're supporting the warfighters in Iraq and we have to accomplish what OSHA thinks we should, yet not diminish what we're doing for the fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan," Easter said. "It's a dillemma, it really is."