Grain Industry Safety Focus in Missouri

OSHA is expanding a regional emphasis program (REP) that focuses on worker safety in the grain handling and storage industry.
The Missouri program is identical to those already in place in Kansas and Nebraska.
The agency said that between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2023, it responded to three fatalities, 13 reported amputations and 36 hospitalizations among industry workers in the three states alone.
During that period, the agency completed 104 inspections, including 68 in Kansas, 28 in Nebraska and eight in Missouri, and received 131 complaints or referrals about unsafe conditions in the grain handling industry.
Hazards at grain handling facilities include dangers related to fires and explosions if combustible dust ignites, engulfment, confined spaces, falls, auger entanglements, electrical shock and electrocution, struck-by incidents, and those related to rail car operations, OSHA said.
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Meanwhile, Nebraska grain cooperative Legacy Cooperative faces a $536,965 OSHA fine for two willful and 22 serious violations, the agency announced Oct. 3.
OSHA initiated an inspection as part of its local emphasis program (LEP) for grain-handling facilities in the state. Agency inspectors identified life-threatening hazards at the employer’s Hemingford, Nebraska, facility, where workers faced risks of fire and explosions because the company allowed a buildup of combustible dust and failed to maintain effective dust collection systems.
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Florida boat maker Blacktip Boatworks LLC now faces a total of $328,287 in penalties after it ignored 15 existing safety and health hazards cited by OSHA safety inspectors in July 2023.
The company’s failure to abate the hazards was discovered in a March 2024 follow-up visit to the Pinellas Park firm.
OSHA cited Blacktip Boatworks — which designs and builds semi-custom flat, bay and offshore boats — with four failure-to-abate, two serious and three repeat violations, as well as one other-than-serious violation because of the inspection.
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Tennessee OSHA (TOSHA) has opened an investigation to determine the circumstances that led to the deaths of several workers swept away in flash flooding at Impact Plastics in Erwin while on the job in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Tennessee law allows an employer eight hours to notify TOSHA of workplace fatalities.
As of Thursday morning, the agency had not received a fatality report from plant managers.
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