Had MFA Enterprises Inc. – operating as West Central Agri Services – addressed potential dust ignition sources, an explosion that seriously injured an employee and caused the destruction of the main elevator at an Adrian grain loading facility might not have happened, reports WorkersCompensation.com.
OSHA cited the grain-handling facility for one willful and six serious safety violations, and proposed penalties of $215,525.
A U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation of the Dec. 31, 2020, explosion determined that the company failed to equip bucket elevators with monitoring devices that notify workers when a belt is slipping and potentially causing friction that could ignite grain dust. OSHA standards require these devices at grain handling facilities that have a storage capacity of over one million bushels. OSHA also found the company had not updated its dust collection system since its installation in 1974.
Additionally, OSHA found that the company exposed workers to falls by willfully allowing them to walk atop railcars to open and close hatches without fall protection. The company also failed to repair an overhead trolley system used for connecting fall protection devices. the region's oldest agricultural cooperatives and brings together 45,000 farmers in Missouri and adjacent states.
MFA Inc., an entity related to MFA Enterprises Inc., is one of
