Kaiser settles blast probe

It will pay $513,000 for 18 violations
By Mary Swerczek
River Parishes bureau/The Times-Picayune

Federal labor officials announced a $513,000 settlement with Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. on Thursday for 18 violations that the federal agency says led to a 1999 explosion that destroyed a quarter of the Gramercy plant and injured 29 workers.

The settlement, the largest civil penalty ever paid to the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration in a nonfatality accident, fined Kaiser for violations such as not properly training workers and failing to provide protective clothing. It also said the plant's pressure-relief safety system was not working.

Two Kaiser managers also agreed to pay $12,500 each for violations that the federal agency says the managers should have known existed.

The settlement that was reached Wednesday brings an end to the investigation into the blast.

The plant reopened partially this week after being shut down since the July 5, 1999, explosion, Kaiser officials said.

As part of the settlement, the agency dropped five citations, including one that accused Kaiser of impeding its investigation into the blast by deleting computer documents.

The settlement also ensured that Kaiser implements safety standards at the plant, including undergoing a comprehensive safety and health audit semiannually.

Two Kaiser employees were cited for violations.

Walter Hansley, a digestion supervisor, was cited for failing to ensure that the pressure vessels were operated safely. Don Williamson, a digestion superintendent, was cited for an inadequate safety examination of the digestion area a month before the explosion.

The explosion occurred in the plant's digestion area, a key production center of the plant. The digesters are pressure cooker-like machines that extract alumina from bauxite, a clay-like ore mined in Jamaica.

Kaiser's acceptance of the settlement doesn't mean the company is accepting blame, company spokesman Scott Lamb said.

"We just wanted to put this matter behind us and avoid the time and expense of continuing legal dispute," he said.

Kaiser had been appealing the agency's citations and fines.

The settlement was reached just as the plant started up for the first time since the explosion.

The plant will increase production over the next several weeks until it has reached 75 percent capacity, Lamb said.

Rebuilding the plant will cost about $275 million, up from earlier estimates of $198 million, partly because the company increased the plant's capacity.

The higher cost also is due to additional safety features in the digestion unit, where the explosion occurred, Lamb said. Some of the safety measures were dictated by the federal agency and others were Kaiser's initiative, Lamb said.

The company expects insurance to pay about half of the cost.

When it's fully operational, the plant will produce 1.25 million metric tons of alumina annually, according to a news release. Before the explosion, the plant produced 1.07 million metric tons of alumina each year.

The company is expected to produce about 40,000 metric tons of alumina during the rest of 2000, the news release said.

Kaiser hopes to have the plant fully running by March 2003.

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