Probe of Blast Killing Clinton IA Firefighter May Last Six Months

CLINTON — The United States Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has six months to determine if safety or health hazards are partly to blame for the death of one Clinton firefighter and serious injuries sustained by another.

"If there is a fatality involved, we automatically initiate an inspection," OSHA administrator Don Peddy said Thursday. "We look for hazards, occupational safety and health hazards. We've got six months to conduct the inspection, and we will conduct a thorough investigation."

Peddy would not discuss the Jan. 5 fire and resulting explosion at Clinton's Archer Daniels Midland plant specifically, but said OSHA's job is to determine whether any occupational or health hazards led to the death of Lt. Eric Hosette and the critical injury of firefighter Adam Cain.

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If OSHA identifies safety hazards contributed to the incident, "We would issue a citation associated with the hazards," Peddy said.

While OSHA inspections can, in theory, result in criminal charges, "Criminal willful is rarely, if ever, exercised," Peddy said.

According to Clinton Herald archives, an Clinton ADM employee was severely injured in May 2018 when a boom truck struck a high-voltage power line. OSHA lists the incident as a serious violation and issued a penalty of $12,471.

In July 2016, Glenn E. Jones Jr. sustained fatal injuries at the ADM railroad switchyard in Clinton. OSHA does not list a violation or penalty for that incident.

OSHA lists serious safety violations and informal settlements at the Clinton ADM facility for incidents in February 2018, August 2017 and November 2015.

OSHA doesn't track the frequency of deaths and injuries for individual establishments, Peddy said, but it regularly inspects companies for safety and health hazards.

"We have mechanisms to do what we call programed inspections," Peddy said. "In addition we address federally mandated activities."

Firefighters were called to ADM early Jan. 5 after ADM employees discovered smoldering material in one of the silo storage bins at the loading facility, Jackie Anderson of ADM media relations said the weekend of the accident.

A couple of hours into the incident, an explosion in the silo killed Hosette and critically injured Cain. Cain was transported to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, where he remains in critical condition.

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