Dundee, OR – Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) has investigated the death of a worker at an Oregon winery that occurred on February 1st. OSHA fined the Oregon Winery for the worker’s death. The violations were cited as confined space violations and totaled $11,100 in proposed citations.
The worker was found unresponsive on February 1st in an empty 30,000-gallon wine tank. The 39-year-old man was assigned to pump out about 500 gallons of wine remnants into another tank. Low-pressure nitrogen gas was pumped in from the top of the tank to prevent the oxidation of the wine remnants. This resulted in the man’s asphyxiation, according to the investigation.
The investigation cited Corus Estates & Vineyards LLC, a custom crush winery, for nine serious violations. In OSHA Oregon’s press release, Oregon OSHA Administrator Michael Wood stated, “Every workplace death is a tragedy. And confined spaces are unforgiving. Employers must anticipate the risks and ensure that they protect their employees who enter confined spaces. When something goes wrong in such a space, it is already too late to address the problem.”
The specifics of the violations and penalties are laid out below. Oregon OSHA cited Corus Estates & Vineyards for the following serious violations:
- Not performing initial testing for atmospheric hazards before entry.
- Not ensuring that a required attendant and entry supervisor was designated for the permit confined space entry.
- Not developing procedures to ensure employees who are entering permit confined spaces with alternate entry procedures are following those procedures.
Total proposed penalties for the above violations: $7,500
- Not ensuring that all confined space permits were reviewed after they were canceled. Several of the permits were not filled out and were missing required information.
- Not making sure all confined space entry permits included information about rescue services and how to contact them.
Total proposed penalties for the above violations: $1,200.
- Not having permit entry rescue procedures, including the process for contacting rescue services.
- Not conducting practice entry rescues for presses, tanks, and below-ground permit-required confined spaces.
Total proposed penalties for the above violations: $1,200.
- Not training employees on recognizing confined spaces or procedures necessary to safely enter a confined space before an employee’s assigned duties changed.
- Not ensuring that all employees, whose primary language was Spanish, were proficient in their assigned confined space duties.
Total proposed penalties for the above violations: $1,200
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