OSHA fines Kuna meat-rendering plant where employee died
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined the owner of a Kuna meat-rendering plant where an employee died in April.
Darling Ingredients, which operates the plant at 18305 S. Cole Road, was fined $63,616. Most of the fine, $42,411, was assessed because of prior violations at Darling plants in Tampa, Florida, and Bastrop, Texas.
At all three plants, Darling failed to develop, implement and document procedures for maintenance on a meat grinder, OSHA said in its citation issued May 27. The previous violations took place in 2019 in Tampa and 2017 in Bastrop.
The Kuna plant failed to adequately develop safety procedures for several machines, OSHA said. It also failed to develop steps for shutting down and securing equipment to ensure workers aren’t injured.
OSHA has not explained how the worker, who has not been publicly identified, died. Nor has it said whether the deficiencies identified in the citation were responsible for the worker’s death.
One of the violations in the citation alleged that Darling Ingredients failed to use a guard to protect the operator and other employees working in the area of a meat-grinding machine from rotating parts, flying chips and sparks.
“A barrier guard was not in place to keep employees away from the zone of danger created when pneumatic pressure was used to move the shovel cylinder guide rods in and retracted out of the grinder,” the citation said.
The report noted that violation was corrected at the time of the inspection
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor said by email that he could not comment because it’s still an open case.
Darling Ingredients, which is based in Irving, Texas, and also has a plant in Twin Falls, has until June 18 to appeal the fine. A spokesperson for Darling did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Darling Ingredients uses animal waste products to create ingredients used by manufacturers in the pharmaceutical, food, pet food, feed, technical, fuel, bioenergy, and fertilizer industries. The company also processes used cooking oil and animal fats into fuel and feed.
The Kuna-Melba News first reported the fine.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 2:45 PM.
