Safety

NEW BEDFORD, MA – July 15, 2010 – A waterfront seafood processing facility is facing $279,000 in federal fines for alleged workplace hazards.

American Seafoods International LLC, of the brand name American Pride Seafoods fame, faces the fines after a six-month inspection conducted by the U.S. Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration that unearthed 15 alleged "willful and serious violations and standards" at the company's plant at 40 Herman Melville Blvd.

OSHA is proposing the fines mainly for deficiencies in its process safety management program.

Such a program is a detailed set of requirements and procedures employers must follow. The program deals with equipment that contains large amounts of hazardous chemicals. In this case, the chemical is anhydrous ammonia in the plant's refrigeration system.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today [subscription site]

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BOSTON—The Coast Guard says a clam boat that dragged up canisters of mustard gas earlier this month off the coast of Long Island, N.Y., has been decontaminated.

The Coast Guard's Boston office announced Saturday that there is no detectable sulfur mustard contamination aboard the vessel, the ESS Pursuit.

In addition, 180 clam cages were decontaminated. A cold-storage facility, Sea Watch International in New Bedford, also has been cleaned.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

The regional coordinator of the federal "on-board observer program" — whose operation has become a flashpoint complaint of fishermen in problem-solving meetings called by the government — withheld from the industry that observers interfering with life-saving electronics — the EPIRB signals — has become a systemic pattern.

Amy Van Atten had already learned of the frequent bollixing of the lifesaving equipment in reports by fishermen through documented correspondence published on the website of the New England Fishery Management Council.

According to an exchange of e-mails between Eric Brazer Jr., of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association, and Rodney Avila, a New Bedford boat owner and council member, at least eight fishermen have watched inexperienced observers fumble or compromise boats' EPIRB equipment.

Avila said he had been documenting the dangerous mistakes of observers for more than two years — and had briefed Van Atten in detail about the ways in which their work was accidentally compromising the safety equipment on fishing boats, and had done so repeatedly.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the issues discussed between fishermen and NOAA in both Gloucester and New Bedford was the repeated instances of inexperienced observers interfering with safety systems.

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton (with material from Gloucester Times) – June 16, 2010 – One of the issues discussed between fishermen and NOAA in both Gloucester and New Bedford was the repeated instances of inexperienced observers interfering with safety systems.

The problem is just one of the complaints about the ramp up of the observer program, in which companies have hired poorly trained and inexperienced recruits.

Federal regulations require that observers check safety systems on board vessels, prior to going out. The problem is that it appears some do not know how to do so.

According to an exchange of e-mails between Eric Brazer Jr., of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association, and Rodney Avila, a New Bedford boat owner and council member, at least eight fishermen have watched inexperienced observers fumble or compromise boats' EPIRB equipment. In most cases this is the result of the observer trying to check the charge or the battery condition, and not being familiar with the equipment.

The same issue was raised in Gloucester. Joe Orlando, who owns and operates a Gloucester dragger, told the meeting that an on-board observer, required to count fish and conduct safety inspections, had recently gone onto the roof of the cabin of his boat, the Padre Pio, opened and looked inside the water-activated EPIRB element.

Orlando said the observer on this recent trip was not trained or knowledgeable about the EPIRB system. 'It's very technical; I don't even touch it,' said Orlando.

'It's crazy; a kid's who's never been fishing before was checking safety equipment,' he added.

In a separate incident, documented in New Bedford, an observer dropped the EPIRB and cracked the antenna, and never told the captain. For two trips, the EPIRB was not sending a signal, and it was not until the supplier did their monthly safety check that they found the EPIRB was compromised.

 

 

 

 

 

EASTPORT, Maine — Federal officials began setting up this week to map the bottom of Cobscook Bay and parts of the Bay of Fundy to help determine whether any uncharted ledges or outcroppings are responsible for the sinking of vessels and the death of more than 16 fishermen in recent years.

The three-man crew of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s hydrographic Navigation Response Team arrived in Eastport Monday and immediately began preparations to survey the bottom of Cobscook Bay over the summer and into the fall.

NOAA’s navigation services usually are working at much larger commercial ports — some with as many as 200 ships a day moving in and out — or supporting national security.

But at Eastport, the matter truly is one of life and death.

“It is the loss of life that drew us here,” Cmdr. Lawrence T. Krepp, the team’s chief, said Tuesday.

Read the complete story at Bangor Daily News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A captain and his first mate remain aboard the ESS Pursuit, a New Jersey based clam boat despite it being ordered isolated by the Coast Guard.

Officials said Tuesday night that they plan to decontaminate the vessel on Wednesday.

The 145-foot clam rig pulled up World War I era canisters while dredging for clams 45 miles of the coast of Long Island New York Sunday. One was apparently leaking and made some of the crew sick.

"It was just a strong chemical order that just didn't seem right," fisherman Kevin O'Sullivan said.

Read the complete story at NECN.

 

 

 

 

 

A crew member aboard a clamming vessel that pulled up mysterious canisters from the ocean off Long Island was exposed to mustard gas, the World War I chemical warfare agent, the doctor treating the man said today.

Ed Boyer, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester who is leading the team treating the man, said he was doing well after suffering burns on his arm and leg. Boyer said it was the only non-military occupational exposure to mustard gas in the United States he had ever heard of.

"What is stunning to everyone is it is still so potent after all this time," said Boyer, a medical toxicologist who studies mustard gas.

The Coast Guard said blister agents — a group of chemicals that includes mustard gas — were found in one area of the ESS Pursuit today, and the Coast Guard, the EPA, and other federal, state, and local agencies were developing a decontamination plan for the boat.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

Fishermen dredge up WWI chemical agent containers, causing them to get sick and blister.

See the video from the Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

A fishing boat dredging for clams off New York's Long Island pulled up 10 canisters, including one that broke open and released an unidentified chemical that caused two crew members to blister and struggle to breathe, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday.

The ESS Pursuit took the sickened crew members back to its New Bedford, Mass., port, where emergency medical workers rushed them to St. Luke's Hospital on Monday morning.

One was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital for further treatment after his condition worsened, Fire Chief Brian Faria said. The other was released in the afternoon, St. Luke's Hospital spokeswoman Joyce Brennan said.

The crew of six caught the canisters in their nets Sunday about 45 miles south of Long Island but dumped them back into the ocean when one crew member began developing blisters. It was several hours after he had been exposed to the contents of the container that had broken open, Coast Guard spokesman Jeff Hall said.

Read the complete story at CB Online.

 

 

 

 

 

A fishing boat captain from Cape Cod died while trying to rescue one of his crewmen who fell overboard off the coast of Nantucket early this morning, the Coast Guard said.

Captain John Zuzick, 53, of Harwich put on a survival suit and dove into the chilly water shortly before 5 a.m. after the crewman working on deck fell.

The crewman, Bill Silva, fell while trying to untangle some line that was caught in a propeller of the Silver Fox, a 60-foot clam dredge. The fouled line had disabled the vessel, and it had gone adrift. The two men were unable to make it back on board.

Zuzick’s wife told the Cape Cod Times that her husband had suffered a heart attack. The Times reported that Silva, who was not wearing any survival gear, survived by clinging to Zuzick for more than 30 minutes.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.