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Jim Freemyer, a 59-year-old oilfield worker, died in July 2014, shortly after he had begun driving a truck and performing tank gauging duties for his employer, Now or Never Trucking. Initially, his death was ruled to have occurred due to “natural causes:” Freemyer’s existing health conditions included type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
But shortly before Freemyer’s death, NIOSH had published its initial report on worker fatalities during flowback operations, including tank gauging. The agency had linked a number of deaths that were initially attributed to “natural causes” to a previously undocumented hazard: the hazard of exposure to volatile hydrocarbon plumes released from the thieves’ hatches of oilfield tanks.
Flowback Operations, Workers’ Compensation Liability, and OSHA fines
When it ruled in favor of Freemyer’s widow – granting her $7000 to help pay for her husband’s funeral costs, and a death benefit of about $530 per week for the rest of her life – the court determined that Freemyer’s death was, in fact, work-related. Going forward, this opens the door for the families of other workers to claim workers’ compensation benefits for oilfield injuries.
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More, an OSHA investigation resulted in $19,600 in proposed fines against the employer, for violations of the respiratory protection and PPE standards. This is significant, in part because the oil and gas industry is specifically exempted from a number of OSHA standards, including:
- The process safety management (PSM) standard, 29 CFR 1910.119
- The permissible exposure limit for benzene (1 ppm); at well sites, the limit is 10 ppm
- The hearing conservation standard, 29 CFR 1910.95
- The control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout) standard, 29 CFR 1910.147
OSHA can only cite oil and gas employers under the general duty clause for hazards covered by those standards. But there is no such exemption from respiratory protection and PPE standards, and OSHA is making use of what it can.
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Freemyer’s employer was found to have:
- Failed to evaluate the respiratory hazards Freemyer was exposed to, which included exposure to an oxygen deficient atmosphere.
- Failed to provide appropriate PPE. Freemyer had complained to his employer about a month before his death of feeling disoriented after opening the tanks. He was given a respirator to wear, but it turned out to be the wrong type.
- Failed to implement engineering controls that could have reduced or eliminated Freemyer’s exposure.
- Failed to provide training that could have helped Freemyer protect himself from the hazard.
So, as a result of NIOSH’s determination that oilfield workers’ deaths during flowback operations are a result of work-related exposures, not natural causes, employers in that industry now face increased liability under both workers’ compensation and OSHA.
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