The Chemical Safety Board has finished its investigation and reports out what we all knew already: Sheptor's management was a disgrace and Sheptor himself is a murderer. 13 times.
Released Thursday, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's long-awaited final
report blamed Imperial for the Feb. 7, 2008, explosions and fire, which also injured dozens of others.
The report said company officials long knew the dangers of combustible sugar dust, which the board and other agencies say fueled the inferno.
"The explosion at Imperial Sugar was entirely preventable, and the deaths and injuries ... should not have happened," board chairman John Bresland said at a news conference.
Citing "poor equipment design, poor maintenance and poor housekeeping," Bresland said, "It's not rocket science; it really isn't."
Sheptor has been pretending otherwise. Maybe to him, it is rocket science. He isn't the brightest bulb ion the tree. He's a CEO. From Texas. His specialty is saving money by screwing workers. You don't have to be smart to do that, you just need to have the power and be willing to use it ruthlessly. He does and he is and he did. He ignored 200 warning violations from OSHA because he didn't want to spend the few thousand it would have taken to clean up the plant's act and put in place safety devices and safety training. More importantly, he didn't want to lose the production time that might have cost him as much as 1/4% off his weekly profit statement.
Surely 13 lives is a small price to pay to prevent such a travesty. They think so inTexas.
Imperial CEO and President John Sheptor did not contest the findings.
Sheptor said in a written statement that Imperial and the board collaborated throughout the probe.
"We appreciate their professionalism, and we value their contributions to our combustible dust and safety program," he said.
(emphasis added)
As for the supposed "collaboration", the Board didn't have much choice as far as the CSB is concerned. They have subpoena powers for the investigation of a deadly accident. Unless Sheptor is asking for credit for not breaking even more laws, trouble even Saxby Chambliss couldn't get him out of. When the Board could have co-operated with OSHA, they stonewalled, backtracked, lied and denied, denied, denied.
Sheptor is still CEO. It's a Texas company, after all, and they tend to appreciate the kind of leadership that protects profits by killing a few unimportant workers now and then. Keeps the employees in line, too.
For the record, Imperial's supposed "combustible dust and safety program" didn't exist before the explosion and may not exist now. No one's asking what they're doing differently now and I suspect that an honest answer would be "nothing".
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