City authorities in Middletown, Connecticut, are carrying out their own investigation into the causes of the fatal gas explosion at the town’s Kleen Energy power station on 7 February to determine whether or not criminal charges should be brought. Investigators are seeking to determine whether employer negligence was involved in the blast. It has also been reported that main contractor and part owner of the plant O&G Industries is being investigated for possible serious violations of safety standards.
The gas explosion blasted open one of the buildings under construction, killed five people engaged in purging gas lines, and injured upwards of a dozen others. It was one of the worst industrial disasters in the US in recent years.
Kleen Energy Middletown is a 620 MW combined cycle facility with a Siemens power island comprisig two gas turbines and a steam turbine. It is being built to supply electricity to Northeast Utilities’ Connecticut Light & Power company under a 15-year power purchase agreement. The plant was undergoing final construction as well as testing procedures and was due to come on line in the summer. The shockwave from the explosion was felt and heard thirty miles away.
No definite cause of the explosion has yet been published, and is not expected for several weeks. The Connecticut Fire Marshalls and the US Chemical Safety Board are currently working together to find out exactly what happened. The site is also being investigated by a team from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a division of the US Department of Labour. A central focus for investigators involves statements from some site workers who have claimed that they had been under pressure to finish the project, working as many as 80 hours a week in the days before the explosion. Workers have also reported smelling gas as little as an hour before the explosion.
The tragedy is the latest in a string of gas purging related industrial accidents in the USA. In November 2007, an explosion at a Dominion Virginia Power coal-fired plant in Massachusetts killed three workers, and in January 2007 one worker was killed and nine others injured at an American Electric Power plant of the same type in Beverly, Ohio.
Linkedin
