US seafood company facing fines over processing breaches

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said it plans to impose penalties totaling $47,250 on Boston’s Stavis Seafoods for 15 alleged serious violations - mainly for deficiencies in its process safety management (PSM) programme.

Processing system​

The PSM system lays out detailed requirements and procedures food processing companies must follow to assess and address dangers linked with processes and equipment that use large amounts of hazardous chemicals.

The safety watchdog discovered numerous problems with the company’s operations connected to the handling of anhydrous ammonia in the facility's refrigeration system. These included failure to conduct initial evaluation of the hazards associated with the system, failing to developing or leaving incomplete standard operating procedures for system activities, not producing written procedures covering process changes and not updating the process safety information to reflect changes.

OSHA inspectors also found holes in the training for the employee maintaining the refrigeration system. The facility lacked a written respiratory protection program and complete hazardous energy control procedures for all machines.

​Catastrophic effect​

"The requirements of OSHA's PSM standard are stringent and comprehensive because a leak could have a severe or catastrophic effect on employees,"​ said Brenda Gordon, OSHA's area director for Boston and southeastern Massachusetts. "That's why it is imperative for employers to rigorously, completely and continuously scrutinise, update and properly maintain each element of the process to minimise hazards and protect workers' safety and health."​

The company has 15 working days to comply with the citation, request a meeting with OSHA officials or lodge an appeal.

FoodProductionDaily.com contacted Stavis Seafoods for a comment but no reply had been received by the time of publication.