Copper smelter fined for lead, cadmium exposures
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in Washington, DC, fined the country’s largest copper smelter $821,360 for exposing employees to life-threatening levels of airborne lead and cadmium, as well as numerous other health and safety violations.
The fines were levied recently against Franklin Smelting and Refining Corporation of Philadelphia, a copper smelter with 108 employees. The company processes copper-bearing scrap into nearly pure bars of copper for sale. Lead and cadmium are unwanted byproducts of the process.
OSHA inspected the site on the recommendation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, DC, which had worked with the company to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act. Franklin Smelting spent $3 million to enclose its operations and treat the air before it left the plant, but the company failed to provide proper ventilation for employees. Though the company was complying with EPA requirements, OSHA officials had recommended ways to do so and still protect workers from unreasonable exposure. The company did not follow that advice, according to OSHA, and the net effect was a dramatic increase in the employees’ exposure to air contaminants.
The agency’s inspectors found that at any given time since the March 1997 EPA-suggested alterations, about 10% of the 75 employees exposed to lead in their jobs had blood lead levels that required them to either be medically removed from the lead exposure or that indicated possible damaging effects from lead.
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