“My son was murdered” Drilling through Danger Chapter One: Regulatory vacuum compounds inherent risks; In 12-year span, an oil and gas worker died once every three months on average in Colorado, 51 workers died between 2003-14, victims of a system focused more on protecting industry than its employees

COMING TUESDAY: CHAPTER 2 Oil and gas workers’ safety deteriorates with more subcontractors

2016-09-25-snap-denver-posts-drilling-through-danger-part-two-coming-tuesday

Inconsistent reporting of oil field deaths has become “a national problem.” by John Ingold, September 25, 2016, Denver Post

More than 1,300 workers died in the nation’s oil and gas fields between 2003 and 2014 — at a rate that, in bad years, exceeded 10 deaths per month.

But no one can say exactly how many workers have been killed, either nationally or in Colorado, because varying standards for collecting and reporting data on workplace fatalities obscure the precise tally.

“If you have a fatality that could be related to oil and gas, it’s not always classified in the statistics as related to oil and gas,” said Michael Van Dyke, the chief of environmental epidemiology and occupational health at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “It’s a national problem. Everybody is having the same problem. We can’t get a handle on how many fatalities are occurring in the oil and gas industry.”

Between 2003 and 2014 — the most recent years for which data is available — the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 1,333 worker deaths connected to the oil and gas industry. The deadliest year in that span was 2014, when the BLS reported 144 fatalities nationwide.

The Denver Post set out to catalog deaths in Colorado’s oil and gas fields since 2000 but soon learned how difficult that would be.

The BLS changed the industry codes it uses to categorize deaths in 2003, making seamless comparisons with federal data from before that year impossible. On top of that, the bureau won’t publish data it believes can be used to identify the individual killed, citing privacy concerns. So, in years when an industry has only a single fatality, the BLS will include the death in its count of all workplace fatalities but won’t attribute the death to the specific industry in which it occurred.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigates only a portion of workplace deaths — it doesn’t investigate most traffic accidents, for instance. State workers’ compensation officials don’t receive claims for all deaths. And Colorado’s oil and gas regulators do not require companies to report all worker deaths.

A result of all this confusion is that the BLS, OSHA and state officials all report different numbers of fatalities in the oil and gas industry.

Take, for instance, figures for the years 2009 through 2014 — the largest and most recent span for which comparable numbers are available across multiple agencies. The BLS says there were 18 deaths. OSHA investigated 11 deaths it categorized under the oil and gas industry. State workers’ comp officials received claims for 12 deaths — seven of which were at least initially fought by employers. Regulators at the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission received reports of six deaths.

The Post looked through OSHA reports, news accounts and lawsuits and found 12 deaths on oil and gas worksites during the time span.

To clear this confusion, researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have started a new campaign to produce a comprehensive tally of oil and gas deaths. Called the Fatalities in Oil and Gas database, the project is being spearheaded by an epidemiologist in Colorado. The hope is that if officials know how many people are dying in the industry, they might be better able to do something about it.

“We saw that this industry had a high fatality rate; too many workers were dying,” said Kyla Retzer, the Denver-based researcher leading the project. “And we just wanted to play a part in improving safety and health.” [Emphasis added]

Drilling through danger, In a 12-year span, an oil and gas worker died once every three months on average in Colorado, victims of a system focused more on protecting the industry than its employees.

CHAPTER 1 Regulatory vacuum in oil and gas production compounds the inherent risks of drilling by Monte Whaley and John Ingold, September 25, 2016, Denver Post

The temperature dipped to 14 below zero, but the oil and gas industry does not take a day off, so neither did Matt Smith.

A high-pressure water line at his Weld County worksite had frozen solid in the cold, and Smith and his co-workers for energy giant Halliburton Co. took a blowtorch to thaw it. Suddenly, the line exploded, spraying water at more than 20 times the pressure of a fire hose.

[Creepy. A similar explosion happened in Rosebud Alberta, at the community’s drinking water reservoir that Encana had illegally and secretly turned into an industrial cesspool of contamination. After Encana fractured Rosebud’s drinking water aquifers and contaminated them with methane, ethane and other chemicals, with Alberta regulators engaging in fraud to help Encana cover it up, John Garvin, Wheatland County water manager, used a propane torch to try to thaw a frozen vent on the drinking water reservoir (ie not a drilling rig, compressor station or gas plant):

2005 01 27: Investigators say an accumulation of gases appears to have caused the explosion that destroyed the Rosebud water tower and sent a Wheatland County employee to hospital with serious injuries ]

Two co-workers were seriously injured and raced to a hospital. Smith — the right side of his face torn apart by the blast — was killed.

Smith’s death, in November 2014, was among the most recent of at least 51 fatalities since 2003 in Colorado’s oil and gas fields, according to federal data. And what happened next was typical of a system that falls short of consistently protecting workers and fails to hold companies strictly accountable.

Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the incident and levied against Halliburton a $7,000 fine, which the multibillion-dollar company initially fought before agreeing to pay. Halliburton and the worksite’s operator failed to file a required report to state oil and gas officials, who, regardless, are powerless to regulate worker safety on the sites they oversee and don’t inform OSHA of safety problems.

Smith’s family, blocked by workers’ compensation laws that protect employers even when they are at fault for an employee’s death, could not sue for punitive damages.

And another worker was laid to rest from an industry that, in good years, directly employs more than 35,000 people and generates more than $15 billion worth of production in Colorado but receives less scrutiny from workplace-safety inspectors than roofers and homebuilders.

“Trucking is more regulated and a lot safer,” said Matt Smith’s father, Carl, who also worked in the oil and gas business. “That same type of regulation could have saved my son.”

Culling the vast oil and gas reserves in Colorado is a dangerous job. Oil and gas companies say they work hard to educate their employees about job hazards and promise to keep their workers safe.

“If there are areas where we need to improve, you can be damn sure we’re going to do it,” said Eric Wohlschlegel, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, a pro-industry trade organization.

“I’m pretty confident that the oil and gas industry probably does some of the best work on safety.”

But a year-long Denver Post investigation shows that there is little consequence when companies let that promise lapse.

A national legacy of encouraging oil and gas development — for energy security, for jobs, for the economy — has created a regulatory vacuum. There is an entire federal agency devoted to mining safety, for instance, but nothing comparable exists for oil and gas. While OSHA has created specific safety standards that companies in other industries must follow, oil and gas businesses successfully beat back such regulations for themselves. The standards — recommendations, really — that OSHA mostly uses to judge safety violations on oil and gas worksites were written by the American Petroleum Institute.

Debate about the industry in Colorado typically focuses on its environmental toll or its potential threat to public health.

Meanwhile, 1,333 workers died in the nation’s oil and gas fields between 2003 and 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The nationwide death toll in 2014 of 144 was the highest in more than a decade. By another measurement — the number of worker deaths per active drilling rig — 2014 was the second-most lethal year in Colorado in a decade, according to a Denver Post analysis. There was about one death per every 12 rigs that year.

Oil and gas worker fatalities by rig count
According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data, there were 51 deaths in Colorado related to the oil and gas industry from 2003 to 2014. Because of worker privacy issues, the BLS would not release years for all of those deaths. Nationally, 1,333 oil and gas workers were killed in the same 12-year time frame.

OSHA rarely levies heavy fines against oil and gas companies. Only one time in the past 15 years has an oil and gas company paid a fine of more than $50,000 for a workplace safety inspection in Colorado. Three-quarters of the time, OSHA allows companies to settle their proposed fines for lower sums — shrinking them at a higher rate than the average for all businesses, The Post found. Since 2000, oil and gas companies have negotiated away more than $1 million in fines for safety violations, according to The Post analysis.

Regulation is so disjointed that no one can even agree on the number of workers killed on the job. The industry does not keep its own tallies. Totals kept by state health officials, the state workers’ compensation agency and OSHA all differ. [All the better to enabling the killing of more workers without interfering with profit taking in a hurry.]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics abides by rigid privacy rules that mean its published state-level figures on oil and gas deaths are often incomplete, and, even when they aren’t, the bureau provides few precise details about the deaths.

For 2003 through 2014 — the longest and most recent time period for which comparable federal data is available — the agency says 51 workers died in jobs related to the oil and gas industry in Colorado. On average, that is one death every three months and is the seventh-highest total for any state in the country.

The Post, searching through OSHA reports, state records, court filings and news accounts, found documentation for 38 deaths in that time span related to oil and gas extraction. In two of those deaths, OSHA never investigated, even after the families of the deceased filed lawsuits accusing the companies involved of responsibility.

The only things that consistently have been able to slow the number of deaths in Colorado have been the prices of oil and natural gas — both near 15-year lows, resulting in a substantial drop in oil and gas activity and employment in the state.

But now, economists have begun looking toward a rebound in prices in a year or two. Historically, when activity surges anew, so do deaths.

Scott Nelson was killed in 2004, when the rig he was working high up on collapsed.

Joshua Arvidson drowned in fracking sand in 2006. Brian Wallace died in 2012 when a pressurized gas line he was handling exploded. He was thrown 45 feet through the air.

In the oil field, there is a kaleidoscope of ways workers can die.

At least two workers were electrocuted. Four others fell to their deaths. One burned alive.

Workers died when pipes fell on them or when trucks they were driving crashed or when forceful drilling equipment struck them. In 2006, four workers died in separate accidents within a 35-day span, the deadliest stretch of time in the industry’s recent history in Colorado.

There are few unions in the oil and gas industry, and although industry advocates, working closely with federal watchdogs, say they are placing more emphasis on safety than ever before, workers still face enormous risks in a field where company safety cultures can vary widely. The combination of powerful equipment, high pressures and flammable chemicals means few jobs in the country can turn as deadly as quickly.

Wolverine Drilling Rig No. 33 was trying to hoist 135 tons of drill pipe in August 2004 near Rifle when its uppermost component — the crown — failed and tumbled to the ground, killing Randall Taylor.

The rig’s owner said no one could have predicted it.

“This unforeseen accident,” Robert Blackford, the president of Wolverine Drilling, wrote in a letter to OSHA two months after the accident, “will serve notice that regardless of proper care of any machine, apparatus, a manmade article can fail without warning.”

But Taylor’s widow, Mary, later sued the engineer who inspected the rig before her husband’s death. The engineer said in a 2007 deposition that he was not told to inspect the crown, and, even if he did, there were no American industry standards at the time to guide his assessment.

“People were operating equipment without any kind of clear requirement for how it should have been inspected or run,” said the engineer, Francis Yuzyk.

In an interview, Blackford, now retired, said the rig’s failure was “spontaneous” and the result of poor manufacturing that inspectors failed to catch. He said the rig had a good safety record and described Taylor’s death as “one of the toughest days I ever had.”

But he said there was nothing he would do differently.

“It’s a tough thing to second-guess what you would do,” he said. “In hindsight, it’s easy to judge what took place. There weren’t any corrective measures that I could have done or looked into.”

Aa result of the dangers, few industries talk about safety as much as the oil and gas industry.

There are regional safety councils in Colorado that hold meetings to discuss emerging dangers. There are safety requirements written into contracts, job safety analyses conducted for specific tasks and daily safety meetings. The American Petroleum Institute maintains 600 standards on industry best-practices.

Still, the industry can be guarded when questioned about safety.

Multiple oil and gas companies declined to allow The Post to observe worker safety training or to review company safety policies. The API is also careful in revealing its standards, many of which are available only at a price. Members of the public can read the API’s full suite of safety and fire-prevention standards — if they pay $2,505 to a company that sells them.

After multiple requests, the API made a safety expert available for a telephone interview on Friday. The Colorado Oil and Gas Association denied a Denver Post request for an in-person interview and would instead only answer questions via e-mail.

“As an industry, employee safety is a top priority for all operators, and many go above and beyond what is required to ensure they are providing a safe work environment,“ Doug Flanders, the policy director for COGA, wrote in a statement.

But The Post found numerous instances where regulators or employees accused the industry of treating worker safety as a burden.

Although federal law authorizes OSHA inspectors to “enter without delay” any worksite they choose to investigate, OSHA has had to go to court a dozen times since 2000 to get warrants to inspect oil and gas sites. In warrant applications, OSHA said one company, Nabors Drilling, had a company policy of refusing to allow inspectors on its job sites without warrants. (A Nabors spokeswoman told The Post that company policy is to require law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant — except in an emergency — before being allowed on site but said the company “has a history of cooperating with OSHA.”)

Another company, Williams Production, required OSHA inspectors in Colorado to go to a regional office in Parachute to obtain the company’s permission before inspecting a Williams rig, even if that site was hours away, OSHA wrote in a 2008 warrant request. A spokesman for WPX Energy, the company formed in 2011 when Williams spun off its drilling and exploration business, said that is not current company policy.

“We want to work in a very cooperative and transparent fashion,” said the spokesman, Kelly Swan.

Oil and gas worker fatalities
There is no single database for deaths in the oil and gas industry. The Denver Post has confirmed the cause of death for 44 oil and gas workers since 2001. From 2003-14, the BLS says 51 workers died in Colorado, but the cause of death was not released in every case.

Although the oil and gas industry accounted for about 3 percent of all OSHA inspections in Colorado from 2000 through 2015, it accounted for 15 percent of all of OSHA’s warrant requests, according to a Post review.

OSHA sought eight warrants in 15 years to inspect Nabors sites. None of those inspections was related to a worker’s death, but three times in 2006, workers complained to OSHA about safety conditions on Nabors sites, telling of greasy floors, workers not wearing fall protection and supervisors sleeping on the job. In one of the complaints, a worker said a supervisor “threatened physical violence against an employee who raised safety concerns,” according to a copy of the complaint filed with a warrant application.

Herb Gibson, OSHA’s area director for the Denver office, said the agency can’t punish companies for refusing to let inspectors in.

“There’s no violation,” he said. “It’s your constitutional right to refuse entry.”

But OSHA officials also worried the warrant requirements could harm enforcement efforts and rob them of their greatest asset: surprise. After Nabors Drilling denied an inspector access to a job site in 2007, OSHA wrote in a subsequent warrant request, “Nabors Drilling effectively obtained advanced notice of the inspection.”

In addition to the inspection warrants, The Post found five lawsuits filed in state or federal court in Colorado over the past 15 years in which workers alleged that they were punished for reporting injuries or safety hazards.

One worker hurt on the job claimed he was told to “take care of the injury himself.” Another said he was made to scrub floors while on work-related restrictions due to an injury. And yet another said his boss told co-workers that the company “had it out” for him because he had petitioned to reopen a workers’ compensation claim.

In one lawsuit, a driller named Earl Woodward alleged that he was fired in 2011 after warning supervisors at Ensign United States Drilling about safety problems on drill rigs.

“Upon one occasion, (Woodward’s) supervisor stated that he did not want to fix a piece of faulty equipment because the replacement would cost Ensign too much money,” Woodward’s subsequent lawsuit alleged.

All of the lawsuits settled for undisclosed terms except for one, which is still ongoing. In each case, the sued companies denied the accusations.

Workers’ compensation claims reveal more ways that oil and gas companies have been accused of penalizing those who report injuries. In a 2013 claim that an administrative judge ultimately denied, a worker said he didn’t report an injury right away as work-related “because he did not want his co-workers to lose their safety bonus.” In a 2011 claim, a worker said that company representatives insisted on accompanying him to doctors’ appointments regarding the injury.

And in 2014, a supervisor at a drill rig said he responded with an expletive when told via text message that a worker had reported an injury on the rig — but the response was not because he was concerned for the worker.

An administrative law judge later wrote in a ruling that the supervisor testified “that he used the expletive because on-the-job injuries are a headache and require a lot of paperwork.”

Most of the time when a drill worker dies in northern Colorado, the phone rings in a cubicle-cluttered office just south of downtown Denver.

From there, 26 inspectors for OSHA patrol 26 counties across the state, including Colorado’s heaviest oil and gas producers. From another office, 14 miles away in Englewood, inspectors cover the remaining 38 Colorado counties.

Combined, those two offices conducted 25,357 inspections between the start of 2000 and the end of 2015, according to OSHA records. More than half of the inspections occurred within the broader construction industry, with the roofing industry, specifically, accounting for about one out of every six inspections.

The Post found 797 inspections that fell within the oil and gas industry, or about 3 percent of the total. More than half the time, OSHA alleged safety violations when inspecting oil and gas sites. In 403 inspections, OSHA proposed fines for the violations, with the average fine being about $8,500 per inspection.

But those fines rarely held up.

In 75 percent of cases where OSHA assessed a fine, the company negotiated to have the fine slashed — on average by almost half, The Post’s analysis found. In 56 instances, companies negotiated away their fines entirely.

The vast majority — more than three-quarters — of those deals came through “informal settlements,” in which companies can negotiate the penalties with OSHA without officially contesting the violations. All but two other deals came through a “formal settlement,” which occurs after a company has contested the violations.

The result of this convoluted process is that OSHA has slapped oil and gas companies in Colorado with about $3.42 million in fines since 2000 for workplace safety breaches but has ultimately settled for $1.94 million. In the most extreme example, Williams Four Corners LLC settled a fine from a single inspection for $50,000 less than initially proposed.

Gibson, OSHA’s area director in Denver, said he slashes fines for good reason.

Sometimes, he said, OSHA inspectors are mistaken in their initial findings, something proved during the settlement process. More important, Gibson said cutting fines is a quick way to resolve a case — and thus get the oil and gas company to fix the underlying safety problems more promptly.

“One of the focuses is to improve their safety and health program,” Gibson said. “That should be the big focus.”

The fine reductions are not limited to the oil and gas industry. But The Post’s analysis suggests the industry may benefit from them more than others.

Analyzing OSHA data between 2000 and 2015, The Post found about $40.6 million worth of fines levied against all companies in Colorado, reduced to $25.5 million after settlement. That’s a drop of 37 percent. For the same period, the oil and gas industry in Colorado saw its total fines reduced by 43 percent, The Post found. Other heavily inspected industries — roofing, construction framing, commercial construction and homebuilding — all saw fine reductions between 30 and 39 percent over a comparable period, according to The Post’s analysis.

A 2010 audit from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Inspector General’s Office raised further questions about the practice.

OSHA, the audit concluded, did not effectively track whether the fine reductions actually improved workplace safety, and the agency didn’t do a good enough job of considering a company’s safety track record when deciding to settle for a lower fine.

The audit found that, over a two-year period in the late 2000s, as much as $127 million in fine reductions across all industries nationwide “may not have been appropriately granted.” That accounted for more than a third of the fine reductions in that period.

A list of reductions that were particularly troubling because they involved companies with a history of workplace deaths and serious safety violations contained 15 inspections in Colorado’s oil and gas industry, including four that occurred after deaths.

Furthermore, the audit found that OSHA’s record-keeping system — in most cases, OSHA’s centralized enforcement database does not contain detailed inspection reports — hindered the agency’s ability to track patterns of safety violations at companies operating across multiple states.

In response, OSHA said it is required by law to consider reducing penalties in certain cases and said it was working to fix the record-keeping problems.

But The Post found one instance in Colorado after the audit that raises questions about what really changed.

Shane Hill was 34 years old when he was killed working on a rig near Parachute in October 2014.

Hill had just finished tightening a 2-inch valve to prepare for drilling. But when the pressure inside the rig reached 2,700 pounds per square inch, the valve blew loose and darted through the air, hitting Hill in the head and killing him instantly.

When OSHA investigators arrived on site, they documented three workplace-safety violations. It was not the first time that OSHA inspectors had found problems with Cyclone’s safety measures on that rig.

Three years earlier, when the rig — Cyclone Rig No. 17 — was drilling in a different location, OSHA inspectors documented five violations and slapped an initial $13,480 fine on the company, according to inspection records. Cyclone settled for three violations and $8,088 in fines.

By the time of Hill’s death, Cyclone had been charged with 37 safety violations on all of its rigs in Colorado since 2000 and been assessed $88,495 in fines, which the company had settled for $42,640 spread out over 29 violations. Two OSHA inspections at Cyclone rigs in Colorado had even been included on the 2010 audit’s list of questionable fine reductions.

Nonetheless, after Hill’s death, OSHA proposed a $13,545 fine against Cyclone. After settlement talks, Cyclone admitted to two violations and agreed to pay $9,805.

There was also a familiarity to the citations.

Two of the violations that OSHA documented after Hill’s death fell into the same categories as violations that OSHA documented during the inspection on Rig No. 17 three years earlier. One charge noted that Cyclone failed to provide adequate protection around floor or wall openings. Another accused Cyclone of breaching its “general duty” to provide employees with a workplace, “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to (its) employees.”

But, despite the repetition after Hill’s death, OSHA didn’t charge Cyclone with any repeat violations — which would carry the heaviest potential fines. In fact, OSHA rarely hits companies in Colorado with the most serious penalties it can deliver.

OSHA has the ability to punish companies with fines of up to $12,471 for serious violations and $124,709 for violations that are repeated or willful, meaning the company knowingly broke workplace-safety rules. Those fine schedules increased this year for the first time in decades.

OSHA has assessed a repeat violation 23 times against an oil and gas company since 2000 and a willful violation three times. After settlement talks, seven companies agreed to a repeat violation and one oil and gas company admitted to a willful violation.

One of those seven companies was Union Drilling, which OSHA charged with a repeat violation in November 2005, after a worker named Larry Hill fell 60 feet to his death while working on a drilling rig in Rio Blanco County, in northwest Colorado. Union Drilling admitted to the repeat violation, along with one serious violation, in a settlement and agreed to pay a $19,900 fine.

That punishment, however, did not eliminate safety hazards at Union’s rigs. Almost 10 months later, OSHA conducted a follow-up inspection at the same rig and charged Union with three more serious violations. The company admitted to the three violations in a settlement but negotiated its fine for them down to $4,550, from $6,000.

And that wasn’t the first time that OSHA inspectors had found continued safety violations at a Union rig after a death.

On May 31, 2004, Scott Nelson was killed when the rig he was working on near Rifle collapsed. OSHA’s investigation turned up five serious workplace-safety violations, resulting in a $24,300 fine, which Union settled at $18,225.

Eight months later, OSHA returned to the same rig and documented two more serious violations. Union agreed to pay a $1,700 fine, half the amount that OSHA inspectors had originally proposed.

Most follow-up inspections at oil and gas sites in Colorado turn up no further safety violations, according to The Post’s review of OSHA records.

But The Post also found 19 instances since 2000 when OSHA inspectors returned to previously cited job sites or rigs — sometimes years later — and found additional violations.

Gibson said both repeat violations and willful violations are difficult to prove, requiring extensive documentation.

“You need good facts,” he said.

But something else limits how vigorously OSHA can tell companies to fix their safety problems — something that shows the unusual difficulty of regulating workplace safety on oil and gas sites.

in 1983, OSHA officials decided there needed to be a change in the way federal rules protected oil and gas workers.

Six years earlier, and after a string of deadly accidents at coal mines, Congress had created the Mine Safety and Health Administration to provide specific protection for miners. Today, that agency’s regulations require that all mines be inspected at least twice a year — and some mines require four inspections a year.

But nothing comparable existed for the oil and gas industry. In fact, there were hardly any workplace-safety rules at all that were specific to oil and gas. So, OSHA proposed writing some.

The existing rules, OSHA wrote in a notice in the federal register in late 1983, “inadequately address the unique hazards encountered” in the industry.

“OSHA believes this lack of adequate regulatory protection has contributed to the high number of deaths and injuries in this industry,” the notice stated.

Oil and gas companies pushed back swiftly — even before OSHA actually proposed the rules.

“It would require a number of major modifications to all rigs at a cost of millions of dollars for no real safety benefit,” Roy Carlson, the then-production director for the American Petroleum Institute, wrote to OSHA in February 1983.

OSHA buckled and announced in 1985 that it would rewrite the proposed rules. But one year turned to two, one decade into another. Early in the administration of President George W. Bush — at a time when domestic energy production was being discussed as a matter of national security — OSHA officially shelved the planned rule rewrite, according to the industry-focused publication EnergyWire.

“The industry has sought to exempt itself from various rules for national energy concerns that they say impact the United States and the military,” said Mark Kaszniak, senior recommendation specialist with the U.S. Chemical Safety Board. “They have a powerful lobbying group on Capitol Hill.”

The result is that oil and gas is now exempt from the types of specific workplace safety standards that other industries must follow.

When OSHA inspectors cite oil and gas companies for safety violations, Gibson said they do so mostly under the agency’s “general duty” standard — which requires that companies must provide a safe workplace. To define when oil and gas companies are violating that standard, OSHA looks to safety recommendations written by the American Petroleum Institute.

The API’s Wohlschlegel says experts from the industry, government and academia all have input in developing the standards, which he said are “widely used” by companies across the globe. But Wohlschlegel said, absent their inclusion in written government regulations, the standards aren’t binding, and the API can’t punish companies that violate them.

A note included in the standards takes that further: “The formulation and publication of API standards is not intended in any way to inhibit anyone from using any other practices,” the note states.

Gibson said using the “general duty” standard has some advantages for federal regulators — mainly that OSHA doesn’t have to prove letter for letter that a company breached a detailed standard in order to issue a citation. But it also limits how much input OSHA can have in telling a company to improve safety.

In many cases, OSHA can only tell an oil and gas company that it has to fix a problem; it can’t order the company specifically how to do that. For instance, if an OSHA inspection finds that an oil and gas company isn’t protecting its employees from toxic chemicals, the agency will tell the company to provide protection. But a lack of detailed standards for the industry means OSHA can’t order the company to provide certain equipment or keep exposure to a chemical below a precise level.

“I think the only way to impact an industry that has high fatality rates is to develop specific standards for that industry,” said R. Dean Wingo, a former OSHA assistant regional administrator in Texas. “But when we started to develop those standards years ago, it just fell apart.”

On the morning he died, Matt Smith’s alarm clock rang at 2 a.m., and the 36-year-old former rodeo star dragged himself from bed.

Time to go to work.

Surrounded by young men on his team at Halliburton, Smith was the veteran of the group. They called him Donkey because he smiled like the character in the movie “Shrek.” And he spent more time with them than he did his own family — one week logging 127 hours on the job, according to his time sheets.

But, by that subzero morning in November 2014, he had begun to dread his assigned job site near Mead, telling friends and family members of dangerous working conditions. He texted his girlfriend, Jennifer Palermo, almost daily with reports of explosions or other hazards.

“This is sh–- show central over by the barn,” he wrote in one such message. “You might see a fireball come from this way today lol.”

“Had a pump blow up,” he wrote in another. “Trying to find a replacement, found one but of course it leaks like a sieve. It’s always an adventure with these clowns lol.”

The dangers wore on Smith so much that he was thinking of quitting his job, Palermo said. But Smith also felt an obligation to the young guys on the team. They looked up to him.

“So many of the other crews had called in sick, or some companies had shut down altogether that day,” Palermo said. “But Matt wanted to be with his guys; they had a camaraderie they shared. He didn’t want to let them down.”

He was working beside them when he was killed.

In the months that followed, Smith’s friends and family would search for answers to the tragedy. His father would wonder how an industry that had sustained the family when Matt was young could now fail to protect them.

“What did it hurt to shut down for a day or two?” asked Carl Smith, who also worked for Halliburton.

His mother would urge the company to adopt new safety policies and restrictions on work in inclement weather.

“Have they done that?” Debbie Smith asked. “No.”

Matt’s daughter would remember her dad through cards and pictures packed neatly into a shed that Carl built to house the memories.

“Best dad in the world,” 13-year-old Huston said. “I wouldn’t have asked for a better one.”

OSHA would cite Halliburton for violating the “general duty” standard because the company didn’t protect its employees from a potential explosion as they worked on frozen high-pressure lines, but then the agency would offer only a nonbinding recommendation that the company thaw lines out more slowly in the future and adopt other safety policies to keep workers from harm’s way.

“Among other abatement methods, one feasible and acceptable method is to develop and implement specific procedural elements,” OSHA’s official explanation of its proposed changes began.

“OSHA is a joke,” Palermo said.

And Anadarko Petroleum, the owner of the site where Smith died, would shut down operations at the well to reassess its safety plans, even though it would not tell The Post what, if anything, it changed.

The assessment ended after one week.

Work began again.

***

Excellent visuals with the article.

2016-09-25-denver-post-feature-on-oil-and-gas-industry-worker-deaths-snap-cause-of-death

***

Name unavailable

Age: unavailable

Date: 2/8/2001

County: Garfield

Employer: unknown

Cause of death: Fall

The worker, a welder, was standing on a ladder while working on a mud pump when a pressure-release valve opened up, blasting him. The worker was knocked off the ladder and fell to the ground, killing him. An OSHA report lists his cause of death as “apparent head injuries and concussion.”

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

OSHA inspection

***

Martin Mireles

Age: 48

Date: 7/11/2001

County: Weld

Employer: Key Energy Services

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

Mireles and three co-workers were installing new tubing at a horsehead-style oil well. While two co-workers went to lunch, Mireles and another co-worker started picking up tools. Mireles climbed over a guardrail and got too close to the well, where he was hit by the well’s turning counterweight and killed.

Initial violations: 2

Final violations: 2

Initial fine: $4,750

Final fine: $4,750

OSHA inspection

***

Rex McCarley

Age: 44

Date: 9/15/2001

County: Garfield

Employer: Baker Oil & Tool

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

McCarley was working on a smaller type of rig that is typically mounted on a truck. A 60-pound valve came apart above him and fell approximately 15 feet onto his head. He was wearing a hard hat, but it was not enough to protect him. He died en route to the hospital.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

OSHA inspection

***

Michael Blanchfield

Age: 41

Date: 10/1/2002

County: Rio Blanco

Employer: Hayes Petroleum

Cause of death: Crushed between equipment

Blanchfield was standing atop a heavy-duty winch on an oil and gas rig when the winch operator turned it on. The winch’s cable cut across his body and pulled him into the machinery, killing him. An OSHA inspection found that the winch lacked covers to protect against injury and that the company did not exercise appropriate safety procedures when adjusting the winch’s brakes.

Initial violations: 6

Final violations: 6

Initial fine: $6,000

Final fine: $4,386

OSHA inspection

***

Marty Vigil

Age: 32

Date: 11/17/2002

County: Weld

Employer: Caza Drilling

Cause of death: Fall

Vigil was working 100 feet up on a rig preparing drill pipe to go into the hole. He was not wearing fall protection and fell to his death. Vigil was a native of Denver who enjoyed coaching his son’s football team, according to his obituary. He also left behind his wife and a daughter.

Initial violations: 5

Final violations: 4

Initial fine: $7,650

Final fine: $4,313

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Raul Barron

Age: 44

Date: 3/31/2003

County: Weld

Employer: Bravo Services

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Barron was working on a water tank with his brother and another man at a facility where water produced during fracking is disposed. Flammable vapors gathered around them, and the torch of a nearby welder set off an explosion that killed Barron and wounded his brother and the other man. Barron was born in Mexico and was survived by his wife and four children, according to his obituary.

Initial violations: 12

Final violations: 10

Initial fine: $30,750

Final fine: $20,900

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Stephen Amen

Age: 44

Date: 5/13/2003

County: Adams

Employer: S&R Oilfield Construction

Cause of death: Rig collapse

Amen was raising the mast of a truck-mounted rig when a part of the rig failed and the mast fell onto him, killing him. He worked alongside his father for an oil-field company his father founded. A Fort Morgan native, Amen enjoyed camping and hunting and was survived by a wife and four kids, according to his obituary.

Initial violations: 4

Final violations: 4

Initial fine: $12,700

Final fine: $10,795

OSHA inspection

***

Kenneth Rens

Age: 57

Date: 2/3/2004

County: Garfield

Employer: Jelco

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

Rens worked for a company servicing remote oil and gas wells, which required him to use a snowmobile in winter. He was traveling on a road that had a single, 9-foot path plowed down the middle, with snowbanks on either side, when he met a truck head-on. He swerved into the snowbank, which tossed him back onto the road, where he was run over and killed. His widow filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company that owned the truck and the company that plowed the road. The suit was settled for undisclosed terms. In addition to his wife, Rens was survived by three daughters, according to his obituary. He was a Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

no OSHA inspection

***

Scott Nelson

Age: 26

Date: 5/31/2004

County: Garfield

Employer: Union Drilling

Cause of death: Rig collapse

Nelson was a floor hand working high up on an oil and gas rig when the rig collapsed. An OSHA report said he “sustained massive trauma” in the fall and was killed. Nelson lived in a small town in Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the Moose Lodge, according to his obituary. He left behind a wife, two daughters and a stepson.

Initial violations: 6

Final violations: 6

Initial fine: $28,800

Final fine: $22,725

ObituaryArticle

OSHA inspection

***

Randall Taylor

Age: 62

Date: 8/13/2004

County: Garfield

Employer: Wolverine Drilling

Cause of death: Rig collapse

Taylor worked on a drilling rig that was trying to hoist 135 tons of drill pipe when it failed, sending the rig’s crown tumbling down. It struck Taylor, killing him. Taylor’s widow filed a lawsuit against various subcontractors who assembled or inspected the rig. The suit was settled for undisclosed terms. Taylor was also survived by two daughters and four grandchildren.

Initial violations: 5

Final violations: 5

Initial fine: $7,200

Final fine: $4,560

Obituary

OSHA report

***

Larry Hill

Age: 42

Date: 11/7/2005

County: Rio Blanco

Employer: Union Drilling

Cause of death: Fall

Hill was 60 feet up in a drilling rig, working on a long string of drill pipe. He fell and was killed. He was buried at a cemetery in his hometown of Moab, Utah.

Initial violations: 2

Final violations: 2

Initial fine: $30,000

Final fine: $19,900

OSHA report

***

Zac Mitchek

Age: 42

Date: 11/25/2005

County: Weld

Employer: Patterson-UTI Drilling Company

Cause of death: Electrocution

Mitchek was performing maintenance on a compressor unit at a drilling rig. He made contact with a live electrical circuit and was killed.

Initial violations: 2

Final violations: 2

Initial fine: $14,000

Final fine: $11,900

OSHA report

***

Joshua Arvidson

Age: 24

Date: 1/25/2006

County: Weld

Employer: CalFrac Well Services

Cause of death: Asphyxiation

Arvidson was an employee of a well services company. While on the job, he entered a trailer holding sand used in fracking operations and became engulfed. The OSHA fine related to his accident was the largest an oil and gas company has paid in Colorado for a death since at least 2000. Arvidson was an Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq, according to his obituary. He was survived by his wife and a daughter who was 7 months old at the time of his death.

Initial violations: 7

Final violations: 5

Initial fine: $40,425

Final fine: $27,825

Article

OSHA report

***

Paul Graves

Age: 40

Date: 4/15/2006

County: Garfield

Employer: Nabors Drilling

Cause of death: Homicide

Graves worked for a drilling company and lived at a company-owned trailer. After a night out, he was attacked by a coworker who also lived at the trailer. Graves died from his injuries a year later, and the co-worker was eventually convicted of reckless manslaughter. Graves’ mother and sister filed a lawsuit alleging that the company knew about the co-worker’s violent tendencies. That suit was dismissed when the company agreed to pay a workers’ compensation death benefit to Graves’ family, according to court papers.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

ArticleArticle

no OSHA inspection

***

Wesley M. Rodrigues

Age: 30

Date: 10/23/2006

County: Las Animas

Employer: Accurate Welding

Cause of death: Crushed between equipment

Rodrigues was a welder working for a subcontractor to a subcontractor on an oil and gas development site. He was building a compressor station at the site when a backhoe operator swung heavy pipes toward him, crushing him. Rodrigues’s widow filed a lawsuit against a number of subcontractors working at the site. The case settled one month before it was scheduled to go to trial.

Initial violations: 3

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $9,375

Final fine: $2,300

OSHA inspection

***

Philip Smith

Age: 44

Date: 11/6/2006

County: Garfield

Employer: Easy Street Crane Service

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

Smith worked for a trucking company that delivered water to oil and gas wells. He stepped out of his truck to chain up the tires, and the truck rolled over him and killed him. Smith was raised in Colorado Springs and was a long-time employee of a credit union before joining the oil and gas industry. He was survived by his wife and three children.

Initial violations: 3

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $4,500

Final fine: $3,000

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Jacob Farmer

Age: 19

Date: 11/16/2006

County: Weld

Employer: Leed Energy Services

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

Farmer was working on a rig when a heavy pulley on the rig failed and a part fell, hitting Farmer on the head and killing him. He was survived by a daughter, who was 18 months old at the time of the accident. His father told a newspaper that Farmer dreamed of being a professional golfer.

Initial violations: 9

Final violations: 8

Initial fine: $19,250

Final fine: $15,075

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Ricky Erb

Age: 19

Date: 11/27/2006

County: Mesa

Employer: Schneider Energy Services

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Erb and two co-workers were cutting into an old gas pipeline that they had been told was abandoned and not under pressure. The line was pressurized, though, and the explosive release of gas struck Erb and threw him backward, causing blunt force trauma that killed him. Erb’s father, grandfather and sister all worked in the oil and gas industry. “There’s always a risk,” his mother told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, “and there is always a risk with any job.”

Initial violations: 6

Final violations: 4

Initial fine: $12,450

Final fine: $8,725

OSHA inspection

***

Name unavailable

Age: unavailable

Date: 2/27/2007

County: Las Animas

Employer: Ricway Roustabout & Water Services

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

The worker was a truck driver hired to haul waste water from a gas well. The truck was going down a steep hill when it skidded and went over an embankment. The driver was either thrown from the vehicle or jumped and was killed. An OSHA inspection found the truck did not have adequate maintenance or inspection records, and its brakes had been worked on a couple weeks before the accident.

Initial violations: 1

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $2,100

Final fine: $2,100

OSHA inspection

***

Joseph Buchanan Jr.

Age: 34

Date: 7/19/2007

County: Garfield

Employer: J And E Enterprises

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

Buchanan was an independent contractor working on a drilling rig. A piece of equipment fell from above and hit him, killing him. Buchanan was from Louisiana. He was survived by a wife and two children, all of whom were living with him temporarily in Colorado at the time of this death.

Initial violations: 9

Final violations: 8

Initial fine: $17,200

Final fine: $9,750

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Reyes Garcia

Age: 31

Date: 7/25/2007

County: Weld

Employer: Leed Energy Services

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Garcia was working at a pump on an oil and gas site when a nearby piece of equipment sparked a flash fire in a cloud of leaking gas. Garcia suffered burns over 85 percent of his body and died six weeks later. His widow sued the subcontractor managing the site and won a $6.5 million jury verdict, the largest ever awarded against an oil and gas company in Colorado for a worker’s death. Garcia’s obituary described him as a family man who loved going on bike rides with his daughter.

Initial violations: 3

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $7,500

Final fine: $6,000

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Name unavailable

Age: unavailable

Date: 8/19/2007

County: Rio Blanco

Employer: Centerfire Trucking

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

The worker was driving a truck with a winch on the back and towing a flatbed trailer to which a “snatch block” on the winch cable was attached. While the truck was driving away from an oil and gas site, the winch kicked on, tightening the cable and causing the block to break free from the trailer. The block flew through the rear window of the truck, striking the worker in the head and killing him.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

OSHA inspection

***

Name unavailable

Age: unavailable

Date: 10/4/2007

County: Garfield

Employer: Bratton Mechanical and Welding

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

The worker, a welder, was working with the operator of a front-end loader to remove a motor from a piece of equipment at an oil and gas site. The boom broke free from the front-end loader and crushed the worker. An OSHA investigation found that the front-end loader was not properly maintained.

Initial violations: 5

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $25,200

Final fine: $8,200

OSHA inspection

***

Name unavailable

Age: 45

Date: 1/29/2008

County: Las Animas

Employer: Santa Clara LLC

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

The worker was a truck driver hired to remove water produced at natural gas wells. The truck was fully loaded and twice failed to make it up a hill. After the second try, the truck slid backward down the hill, then rolled off the road. The driver was partially ejected during the accident and killed. The weather was cold and windy, with areas of blowing snow across the road.

Initial violations: 1

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $2,500

Final fine: $1,500

OSHA inspection

***

Christopher Clark

Age: 26

Date: 3/27/2008

County: Weld

Employer: Patterson-UTI Drilling Company

Cause of death: Crushed between equipment

Clark was working on an oil rig and directing a flatbed truck up a ramp. He was crushed between the truck and a platform on the rig. He was survived by a son. “He had a smile that lit up the room,” his obituary read.

Initial violations: 1

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $2,500

Final fine: $1,500

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Name unavailable

Age: unavailable

Date: 4/18/2008

County: Rio Blanco

Employer: Mountain West Oil Field Service & Supply

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

The worker was a driving a large pump truck down a hill from a drilling site. He lost control of the truck, which rolled and ejected him. He was killed when the truck rolled over him.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

OSHA inspection

***

Javier Perez

Age: unavailable

Date: 6/11/2008

County: Logan

Employer: Sterling Construction Management

Cause of death: Electrocution

Perez was part of a crew working with a crane to build a new natural gas pipeline. He grabbed a hook on the crane just as another part of the crane made contact with an overhead power line. Perez was electrocuted. An OSHA investigation found that the worker who was supposed to be acting as a spotter was instead tying down equipment on a truck bed, and there were no other designated spotters on site.

Initial violations: 3

Final violations: 2

Initial fine: $17,100

Final fine: $17,100

OSHA inspection

***

Steven Raymond Bartlett

Age: 50

Date: 9/7/2008

County: Garfield

Employer: Enterprise Products Company

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

Bartlett worked for a company that owned a natural gas pipeline in Colorado. Part of his job was to aerially inspect the pipeline. He and a pilot were flying over the pipeline when their plane crashed in the mountains near the Utah border. Bartlett’s widow and three daughters filed a lawsuit against the aviation company, alleging that the pilot had no experience flying at high altitude or flying for pipeline inspections in mountainous terrain. The lawsuit was settled.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

Article

no OSHA inspections

***

Talliesin Dodd Hayden

Age: 38

Date: 9/8/2008

County: Garfield

Employer: Halliburton Energy Services

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

Hayden was part of a crew removing a string of tools from a well when a cable snapped and a 29-foot, 100-pound tube fell on his head, killing him. He was a native of Montana who moved to Colorado to work in the oil and gas industry. Hayden enjoyed riding his motorcycle and playing drums in several bands around his hometown of Butte, Mont., according to his obituary. He was survived by his wife, a son and two stepchildren.

Initial violations: 1

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $5,000

Final fine: $3,500

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Michael Foraker

Age: 51

Date: 9/27/2008

County: Garfield

Employer: Tri-State Trucking

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

Foraker was a truck driver for a company often hired to move heavy equipment to and from drilling sites. He was killed when his truck failed to make a turn while driving away from a rig and rolled down a steep hill. Foraker was a native of Grand Junction whose obituary said he, “enjoyed his 1982 Peterbilt, coin collecting, moving rigs, carpentry, eagles, cat fishing and eating almond M&M’s in color order.” He was survived by his wife, a daughter and two stepsons.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Jeffrey Byer

Age: 40

Date: 10/31/2008

County: Weld

Employer: Ensign Drilling

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

Byer was a truck driver who was unloading two pipe racks that weighed a combined 3,500 pounds. One of the racks fell off the truck and crushed him. Byer’s girlfriend was the driver of a pilot car that was on scene at the time, according to a news report.

Initial violations: 1

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $5,000

Final fine: $5,000

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Name unavailable

Age: unavailable

Date: 1/9/2012

County: La Plata

Employer: Serrano’s Inc

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

The worker was a truck driver transporting wastewater from oil and gas production. The worker’s truck’s brakes failed and the truck rolled, killing the worker. Though the accident is clearly oil and gas-related, OSHA’s accident report logs the fatality under the industry code for “inland water passenger transportation.”

Initial violations: 1

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $7,000

Final fine: $6,500

OSHA inspection

***

Randy Mathews

Age: 42

Date: 6/25/2012

County: La Plata

Employer: Elkhorn Construction

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Mathews was working at a compression station where natural gas is collected from several wells and readied for distribution. An explosion killed him and injured two others. A subsequent investigation found that a valve had been left mistakenly closed, leading to a build up of pressure that ruptured a pipe. Mathews had previously served with the Cortez Police Department, according to his obituary. He was a volunteer firefighter and a football coach in Mancos. He was survived by his wife and four children.

Initial violations: 6

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $42000

Final fine: $21000

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Adleberto Pena

Age: 44

Date: 6/28/2102

County: Archuleta

Employer: Key Energy Services

Cause of death: Fall

Pena was working on the top of a rig’s mast when he lost his balance and fell to the ground.

Initial violations: 2

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $14,000

Final fine: $7,000

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Brian John Wallace

Age: 60

Date: 8/15/2012

County: Weld

Employer: BGH Gas Test Operating

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Wallace was one of several subcontractors from different companies working on a well site. He offered to help a crew trying to install a riser on a well pipe. As he used a jack to lift up the pipe, it exploded, throwing him 45 feet and killing him. His family later filing a lawsuit saying that Wallace was never told the pipe was pressurized. The lawsuit settled. Wallace was survived by his wife, two daughters and six grandchildren. His obituary said he enjoyed golfing, fishing and camping with his family.

Initial violations: 3

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $12,600

Final fine: $12,600

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Jonathan Herod

Age: 49

Date: 1/3/2013

County: Moffat

Employer: Herod Industries

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Herod was working at a well site trying to pump wastewater produced during fracking into a storage tank. The tank exploded, killing him. The Moffat County Sheriff’s office said it appeared that valves were frozen in the cold and that workers were using a propane heater to thaw them when the explosion occurred. Herod was born in Denver and had lived in Craig since high school. He was survived by two daughters and a grandson, according to his obituary.

Initial violations: 6

Final violations: 6

Initial fine: $16,800

Final fine: $16,800

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Adam Kujawa

Age: 28

Date: 1/9/2014

County: Baca

Employer: Greene’s Energy Group

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

Kujawa died from head trauma after being struck by an object on an oil and gas site in southeastern Colorado. He was a native of Texas and was survived by a daughter.

Initial violations: 5

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $18,400

Final fine: $17,000

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Joe Ray Sherman

Age: 51

Date: 3/3/2014

County: Weld

Employer: Now or Never Trucking

Cause of death: Tank gauging

Sherman worked for a trucking company and was taking a sample from an open hatch atop an oil storage tank when he lost consciousness and fell backward. He was found dangling by his sweatshirt, which was caught on the tank’s catwalk. The coroner initially ruled he died from heart disease, but, months later, his death became the earliest in Colorado to be linked to the inhalation of toxic fumes while conducting “tank gauging.” Companies did not provide workers conducting tank gauging with respirators that could protect them from the fumes. Sherman was a native of Texas who enjoyed singing and playing the guitar. He was survived by four children and 10 grandchildren. In his obituary, his family thanked his employer, Now or Never Trucking, for its care and support.

Initial violations: 3

Final violations: 3

Initial fine: $7,700

Final fine: $5,775

Article

OSHA inspection

***

John McNulty

Age: 57

Date: 6/24/2014

County: Weld

Employer: DJ Basin Transport

Cause of death: Tank gauging

McNulty worked for a trucking company and lost consciousness while on a catwalk between oil storage tanks. His death has been linked to inhalation of toxic fumes during a procedure known as tank gauging. McNulty was an Army veteran who enjoyed hunting and playing volleyball with his family, according to an obituary that also described him as, “the ultimate Spoons player.”

Initial violations: 8

Final violations: 6

Initial fine: $31,600

Final fine: $20,800

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Jim Freemyer

Age: 59

Date: 7/13/2014

County: Weld

Employer: Now or Never Trucking

Cause of death: Tank gauging

Freemyer was a truck driver who was found slumped over an open hatch at the top of an oil storage tank. His death was one of three in Colorado linked to the inhalation of toxic fumes during a process called “tank gauging.” Freemyer had become dizzy and disoriented while gauging a storage tank three weeks earlier. Freemyer asked for a respirator to wear while tank gauging, but his boss told him he would have to pay for it.

After Freemyer’s death, his employer fought his widow’s application for workers’ compensation death benefits, but a judge approved the payments. Freemyer was an Army veteran who was also survived by four children and two grandchildren.

Initial violations: 6

Final violations: 4

Initial fine: $29,545

Final fine: $18,000

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Christopher Farrow

Age: 48

Date: 10/9/2014

County: Weld

Employer: Petroleum Field Services

Cause of death: Vehicle accident

Farrow was a surveyor who was working in a roadway when he was hit and killed by a passing truck. His widow filed a lawsuit against the truck driver and his insurance company. A trial in the case is pending. Farrow was a singer-songwriter who appeared in multiple bands in the Denver area. He was survived by his wife and a son.

Initial violations: 0

Final violations: 0

Initial fine: $0

Final fine: $0

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Shane Hill

Age: 34

Date: 10/21/2014

County: Garfield

Employer: Cyclone Drilling

Cause of death: Struck by equipment

Hill was working on an oil and gas rig that was pressuring up to begin drilling. A 2-inch fitting blew off a pipe and struck him in the head, killing him. In a subsequent report to state regulators, his employer pushed responsibility for the accident to Hill, claiming he hadn’t tightened the fitting enough. Hill loved camping and playing disc golf. He was survived by his wife and three children.

Initial violations: 3

Final violations: 2

Initial fine: $13,545

Final fine: $9,805

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Matthew Smith

Age: 36

Date: 11/13/2014

County: Weld

Employer: Halliburton Energy Services

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Smith was working with a crew at an oil and gas well in sub-zero weather. The crew was using a blowtorch to unthaw a frozen water line when the line exploded, killing Smith and injuring two other workers. Smith grew up in Wyoming, where his father worked in the oil and gas industry. He was a high school and collegiate rodeo star. He was survived by a daughter.

Initial violations: 1

Final violations: 1

Initial fine: $7,000

Final fine: $7,000

Obituary

OSHA inspection

***

Reuben Camacho

Age: 26

Date: 1/14/2015

County: Weld

Employer: unavailable

Cause of death: Explosion/fire

Camacho was using a welding torch in a trailer used to haul oil from wells. The torch ignited residual oil inside the tank, causing an explosion that killed Camacho.

Initial violations: 2

Final violations: 2

Initial fine: $5,600

Final fine: $5,600

Article

OSHA inspection

***

Source of fatality data: Bureau of Labor Statistics, OSHA, Denver Post research

A few of the comments:

Drilling for oil is dangerous, nothing will change that. What needs to be changed is safety protocols of the individual worker, if that includes fines and punishment of the company then I’m for it. However, drilling for oil will continue to cause deaths no matter how many ‘regulations’ are put on the rigs. The individual worker is ultimately responsible for his/her safety no mater how many regulations are placed upon them.

The blessings of capitalism, workers are merely capital, and when one fails and dies, the law protective of capitalistic ideology helps the firm to ensure profit. It is the capitalistic philosophy that makes all workers disposable and lifts the corporation to special protected status. It is inhumane by design.

It is very important to understand how preventable these injuries and fatalities really are. It is also very important to understand just how much Colorado statutes, agency regulations, and court precedents enable the status quo to be maintained. It doesn’t need to be this way but for the opinions of state legislators and state regulators.

If you want it changed, you will have to fight for it. Getting rid of employer control of injured and ill worker treatment and facilitating the report of workplace injuries and illnesses to OSHA and CDPHE (now prohibited in Colorado) would be a great first step.

Amendment 69 puts injured and sick worker treatment in the same mainstream with everyone else and would be a great first step. The “gag rule” would cease to exist.

[Refer also to:

2016 08 08: Police shooting of suspect in double homicide at Alberta work camp in AER’s Frac Frenzy Blanket Approval Pilot at Fox Creek was ‘necessary,’ police watchdog finds

2016 07 13: NEXEN BLAMES WORKERS for major explosion that killed two at tarsands SAGD steam injection site near Fort McMurray

2015 06 30: Cumulative Impacts Frack Attack? Double Homicide in “No Duty of Care” AER and Gerard Protti’s Fox Creek Blanket Approval Pilot Project

2016 06 06: Canadian Federal Justice Donald Rennie: “Protection of the environment is, unequivocally, a legitimate use of the criminal law purpose.” Tarsands giant Syncrude loses court fight against rules

2015 04 15: Federal Report Attributes Nine Worker Deaths to Oilfield Vapors, Excluding Two Fatalities Earlier in 2015 Linked to Well Vapors

2015 03 12: Jack Shawn Eyles, 28, from Kelowna, dies fracking in NE BC for Calfrac (Nitrogen Pumping Division) on Progress Energy Canada Ltd. Site: “Not an explosion as we usually think, but an explosive or sudden release of extremely high pressure”

2014 05 21: Four Fatalities Linked to Used Fracking Fluid Exposure During ‘Flowback,’ NIOSH Reports

2014 02 19: With law violations, hazards, waste dumping, air noise land water pollution, permanent water loss, community division, adverse health impacts, lies, fatalities, enabling regulators politicians courts, massive subsidies, PR Panel urges industry to change frac ‘conversation’

2014 02 11: Alberta workplace fatalities close to record numbers in 2013, led by a near doubling of fatalities caused by occupational disease ]

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