Troy Resources fined $1M for fuel spill
mon practice of providing the requisite training to the new employee, before performing his/her duties, especially hazardous activities; The company’s slackness in not monitoring such a high hazard fuel transfer operation which must have been in process for several hours,” it added.
The EPA said that Mitchell told them that workers did not know when the valve was removed “and even suggested that it may have been removed during the recent fatality shutdown of the operations.”
This was in reference to the death of geologist Ryan Taylor. Operations at the company came to a halt after it was issued with a cease order on October 10th 2019, by Minister in the Ministry of Social Protection with responsibility for Labour, Keith Scott, following the death of Taylor.
Taylor died on October 8th while working on the construction of a “bench” in a mining pit. A slippage occurred, which led to him falling and being covered by the rubble. On October 15th, Minister of Social Protection Amna Ally rescinded the order but Troy suspended operations after what it said was the knee-jerk reaction by Scott.
And if the company, according to the report, went through the same safety orientation for the restart following the shutdown for the fatality, as the EPA is now requesting, the agency said it poses serious questions about their overall modus operandi at the site.
Worried
“How could the company have so inattentively not notice that such a critical safety component valve was missing and what other unknown hazards continue to exist that may have also been missed and that should be worried about,” the EPA said.
It was why the agency instructed that the company take a safety pause and implement the stated recommendations.
“As a result of the foregoing, Troy Resources Guyana Inc is required to effect a Safety Pause, effective immediately, to conduct formal environmental, health and safety (EH&S) re-orientation and resensitisation of all of its employees, and comply with the following directives: While routine operations are allowed to continue during the safety pause, the company is required to expedite its completion in an urgent manner; thus the company is required to submit its re-orientation plan including a completion schedule to the agency by March 30th 2020,” the agency stated.
Further, it added, “Prepare and submit to the agency, a comprehensive report on the incident, including the impacts to both surface and ground water, depth and extent of soil contamination, progress to date and plan with a schedule for all cleanup activities, and measures designed and implemented to prevent the recurrence of this and any other EH&S incidents at the site by March 30th 2020; Submit copies of all written procedures employed in carrying out work activities at the site; Prepare a roster of all employees with their designations, and their respective requisite training required schedules and re-schedules of training and identified deficiencies/gaps in the currency of their training as of the day of the incident on March 23rd 2020; Prepare a plan with a schedule to fill in the deficiencies/gaps identified…and immediately commence implementation of that plan; Prepare and submit to the agency, a comprehensive report with documented evidence to support completion of the above items…on or before April 3, 2020.”
The company was told of its fine and warned of failure to comply with the instructions and penalties laid out.
“Failure to comply with the fixed penalty herein, will result in legal action against you without further notice. You are strongly advised to comply with the directive outlined in this enforcement notice; failing which, you may be liable for additional penalties in the sum of six hundred thousand dollars (600,000) and imprisonment for six months, pursuant to section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act,” the EPA said.