PUD fined $35,000 for Priest Rapids explosion

EPHRATA — The Grant County PUD is being fined $35,000 by the Washington Department of Labor and Industries over an explosion in October 2015 that injured six PUD employees, some of them seriously.

The fines were announced Wednesday. Labor and Industries fined the PUD $7,000 for each of five safety violations, according to a L&I press release. That’s the maximum fine allowed.

Utility district officials “believe the results of L&I’s investigation are consistent with the results of Grant PUD’s own internal investigation,” said Tom Stredwick, public relations officer for the PUD. “Going forward we are going to continue taking a holistic assessment of our safety culture to include a review of safety procedures, advanced training opportunities and working to reaffirm every employee’s commitment to speak up when they see a potential safety issue.”

The investigation into the explosion “revealed areas that we must improve,” Stredwick said. “The incident reinforced the fact we work in an industry with hazards and as such, we have to be constantly attentive to ensuring everyone goes home safe.”

The explosion occurred Oct. 8, 2015, as employees worked on a generator at Priest Rapids Dam. Both the PUD and L&I investigations determined the employees didn’t know the circuit they were working on was still active. The workers closed a circuit breaker, “which caused the high-voltage electrical arc flash explosion,” the L&I press release said.

The L&I investigation concluded “the arc flash could’ve been prevented if the employer had ensured the use of safety locks and safeguards to prevent the breaker from being closed when other parts of the circuit were energized.”

The PUD “did not ensure the use of lock out/tag out security devices to prevent inadvertently closing a breaker that could cause an arc flash,” the press release said. Employees didn’t know the lock out/tag out devices had been removed, it said.

Employees weren’t briefed on the circuit conditions that could cause explosions and injury, it said. One of the six employees wasn’t wearing fire-resistant clothing.

The PUD didn’t have records “to show it was in compliance with the state regulation on protecting workers from injury due to hazardous energy,” the press release said.

The PUD’s investigation, the findings of which were released in February, concluded management didn’t sufficiently enforce safety protocols, which led to inadequate precautions. The generator repairs weren’t on the regular work schedule; everyone should’ve stopped anyway and reviewed the details, the report said, but it was close to the end of the workday and it didn’t happen. People assumed the circuit was dead but nobody double-checked, the report said.

In addition, not everybody working on the project knew the actions they took could cause damage and eventually an explosion, the PUD report said.

Cost of the repairs to the generator and equipment damaged in the explosion was estimated at more than $2 million.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.