Imperial Sugar fined $8.7 million

The day of reckoning appears to be nearing for Imperial Sugar. The company's Savannah sugar refinery exploded in February, killing 13 people and injuring scores more. Three-workers remain hospitalized. Today, after a nearly six-month investigation, officials from the Occuaptional Safety and Health Administration issued their findings and proposed fines.

If they stick, the fines would be the third-largest in OSHA history: $5 million for alleged violations at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Savannah and another $3 million for violations at the company's refinery in Gramercy, Louisiana. Many of these violations relate to a build-up of combustible sugar dust. OSHA Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke expressed outrage over what he called Imperial Sugar's "complete disregard" for its workers' safety.

"Imperial Sugar managers had been repeatedly informed of serious combustible dust hazard at the facility as early as 2002," Faulke says. "While the company took steps to determine what hazards were there, they took no reasonable action to fix the problems."

In all, OSHA found 120 violations at the Savannah refinery, including 61 "egregious" violations. The agency says, the refinery had electrical hazards, fall hazards, machine guarding hazards and poor housekeeping related to combustible dust. OSHA's regional director Cindy Coe says excess dust fueled the deadly blast.

"Our theory is that a bucket came loose, whacked against the side, caused a spark and ignited the suspended sugar. And from there, it goes," Coe says.

Imperial Sugar's C.E.O. issued a statement, saying the facts don't support the charges and the company will contest the proposed fines. Imperial Sugar managers, however, aren't the only officials facing withering questions in light of today's allegations, since if, as OSHA alleges, there were serious hazards since 2002, why did it take OSHA six-years and the deaths of 13-people for them to find out about them?

"I'm saying that, given the resources we have, we have been doing random inspections at facilities that have combustible dust," Coe says. "We do not have the resources to inspect every facility in the country, no."

Coe says, OSHA has stepped up those random checks. One given to the Imperial Sugar refinery in Louisiana led to the shut-down of that facility weeks after the Savannah explosion. Inspectors found dust in some locations four feet high.