TREMONT, Maine — The owner of a local gravel quarry, foremen at the facility and the contractor who set an errant blast that damaged neighboring homes have been cited by federal officials for safety violations at the site.
How much money in fines might be assessed over the safety violations has not yet been determined, a Mine Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman indicated Tuesday. Possible civil financial penalties range from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to information posted on the MSHA website.
Earlier this month the agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Labor, served citations to John Goodwin Jr., the quarry owner; David Eastman, owner of Exeter contracting firm Northern Drilling and Blasting; and foremen Ronald Sanborn and Corey Mansolilli.
Goodwin has a history of federal safety violations at a quarry he owns in New Vineyard, near Farmington.
Most of the pending citations at the Tremont facility are not directly connected with a Nov. 17 blast that sent rocks flying hundreds of yards through the air into three nearby houses, according to officials. The planned explosion sent a large rock flying more than 600 feet and through the bedroom wall of local lobsterman Bruce Rich. He was unhurt. Other smaller rocks from the blast struck Rich’s house and workshop, as well as vehicles and houses on neighboring properties, one of which is about 900 feet from the quarry.
Nineteen citations have been issued in all, of which nine were issued to Sanborn, six to Eastman, three to Goodwin and one to Mansolilli. Of the 19 issued, seven have been terminated, which means the conditions that resulted in the particular cited violation have been fixed, MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said Wednesday.
Two citations, issued to Goodwin and to Eastman on Dec. 8, fault the quarry owner and blasting contractor for failing to provide ample warning that the Nov. 17 blast was about to take place. Eastman insisted to MSHA investigator John A. Zahner that he used a horn to signal before the blast, but the two residents who were home at the time of the blast said they did not hear any preblast horn, according to the citations.
The failure to provide ample warning to residents in the line of fire from the blast, according to the citation orders, “exposed persons to [potentially] fatal crushing injuries due to flying material from the blast.”
According to the citation orders, other federal safety violations at the quarry stem from general conditions and operating procedures rather than specifically from the Nov. 17 incident. These violations include:
• Failure to register the site with federal officials.
• Nine instances of insufficient safety training, precautions and notifications.
• Six instances of substandard equipment or physical safeguards.
• An improperly secured water truck.
Contacted last week by phone about the citations, Eastman said he did not realize operations at the quarry were subject to MSHA regulations. Because the quarry is too small to be regulated by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, he said, he thought it was exempt from federal regulations.
“That’s the only [quarry] we ever work on,” Eastman said last week. “We thought if it was under an acre in size, it wasn’t regulated by MSHA.”
Eastman said that to his knowledge fines have yet to be levied and that Goodwin’s insurance company is paying for repairs to the damaged homes.
Eastman did not respond to a voicemail message left Wednesday afternoon on his cell phone.
Attempts to contact Goodwin for this story have been unsuccessful. He has not replied to several messages left at his office since Nov. 17, including messages left last week and Wednesday afternoon.
Rich, the fisherman whose home was damaged in the Nov. 17 blast, also has not returned recent voicemail messages left at his home, including one left Wednesday afternoon. In earlier interviews, Rich said he was home on the day of the blast watching the movie “Meteor” on his large-screen television when rocks started falling from the sky around his house.
According to a state official, Goodwin and Northern Blasting also likely would face penalties from the state in connection with the errant blast if the Tremont quarry had been larger.
Mark Stebbins, mining coordinator for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, said earlier this month that because the quarry is only 0.84 acres in size, the state cannot take action for the blast. DEP regulates only quarries that are at least 1 acre in size, Stebbins has said.
Town officials in Tremont, however, have said they are working on local regulations aimed at preventing the kind of incident that happened Nov. 17.
Blasting contractors and quarry owners do not have to get approval from the town before setting planned explosions. The town is drafting an ordinance that would require operators to get such approval. Tremont officials have said they hope to present the proposed ordinance to voters for possible adoption at the annual town meeting next May.
According to MSHA’s online mine data retrieval system, Goodwin has been fined in nine of the past 11 years, including 2011, for violations at a quarry he owns in the Franklin County town of New Vineyard. Between 2001 and 2011, Goodwin has been fined and paid a total of $5,244 in penalties for 43 separate safety violations at the New Vineyard site.
Information available in the online database indicates that from 2009 through 2011, safety violations at the New Vineyard site include:
• Unguarded moving machine parts.
• Insufficient impeding devices such as berms, safety hooks, or guardrails.
• Improperly maintained braking and audible warning devices on self-propelled mobile equipment.
• Improperly maintained containers.
• Insufficient first aid training or availability.
• Unsecured gas cylinders.
• Inadequate response in fixing defects.
Descriptions of the safety violations at the New Vineyard site before 2009 were not available in MSHA’s online database.
I wonder why there is no work in Maine?
I wouldnt work for him with that safety record.
And you have the right to refuse that job. Why is it that the government thinks it has to protect us? You are as safe at work as you want to be. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and telling you to do it. The $215,000 fine goes to who? That’s right, to the government.
So true. Not only will he be fined for the incident, MSHA will go through there with a fine tooth comb and fine him for things you would only find in the fine print of their manuals. The small business owner does not stand a chance.
I hope they do shut him down and let some other small business owner who understands the dangers involved succeed working within the laws, and in a responsible manner
so you think this company is treated like most small businesses? The normal small business does not send rocks flying through the neighbors walls. If that had been a teen who threw a rock through the window of the neighbors, you would be calling for jail time. But, because it is a company, they should be able to destroy the neighbors’ stuff? How does that square in your mind?
This company is the reason so many regulations exist. As it is, their small size (less than one acre) allows them to duck the rules that companies like Cianbro have to comply with. In effect, you think it is ok to put the neighbors’ lives at risk and their employees too because they make a few jobs? It’s ok to kill people if most of the people who work for you don’t get killed during the course of the day? No wonder Newt’s calls for elimination of child labor laws is seen as a kinder gentler conservatism. I don’t think even he says that it’s ok to kill a few people some days, as long as you don’t burden the business with those nuisance health and safety regulations.
If you drive a log truck, it’s perfectly o.k. to smash a hole in someones house and kill a 5yr old boy. So whats the difference?
The Govenah may have a point ; the workforce is dangerously under educated … some small business owners appear to be damned fools, even. .
But how is deregulation good solution to things like this :
“Goodwin has been fined in nine of the past 11 years, including 2011, for violations at a quarry he owns in the Franklin County town of New Vineyard. Between 2001 and 2011, Goodwin has been fined and paid a total of $5,244 in penalties for 43 separate safety violations at the New Vineyard site.”
Shut it down.
It will get worse.
You might want to check your facts a little closer. I do not think that both quarries are owned by the same person.
They are according to this Mine Safety and Health Administration database:
http://www.msha.gov/drs/drshome.htm
If you type in “Goodwin” under operator name and narrow the search to Maine, the Tremont quarry and the one in New Vineyard are the two that appear with John W. Goodwin Jr. listed as the operator.
This sounds like the Three Stooges were running this operation. “Hey Moe! Ya think we used enough dynamite?” “Shut up, Chowderhead, and put some more in there.” “Coitenly!”
He was home watching ‘Meteor’ when the rocks started falling….
‘Wow! That flat screen and surround sound sure are realistic!’ :-0
Question: is it stupid, or just greed that caused all this?
I would love to have one of these government safety inspectors inspect the homes of those making the disparaging comments about safety at this quarry. Most would be shocked and outraged at the list of “safety violations” one of these inspectors would find. Things that the homeowner would be unconcerned about or consider just a matter of using common sense. They would be even more upset at the fines they would be subject to if they were not a homeowner.
Yeah but the homeowner is not the person responsble for setting off the errant blast. The people responsible need to be held responsible. You need to quit making believe that business is never wrong.
By all indications this was an accident. An entirely unforeseen and unusual result of a relatively small explosion. The companies involved are taking responsibility and insurance is covering the damages.
But now the business is being demonized and people are supporting punitive punishment of the business that appears to be unwarranted.
The carelessness or incompetence of the business caused a rock the size of a television to fly 800 feet through the air and come crashing through a persons roof while he was sitting watching TV. I can understand being against government regulation, but how in the world can you blindly stand up for the blasting company when they could have killed someone? Part of being in business and providing a service means that you use caution in providing that service. Its called being responsible.
Yeah, after all it WAS a PLANNED Explosion!!!
The planned explosion sent a large rock flying more than 600 feet and through the bedroom wall of local lobsterman Bruce Rich.
EdIT”
I suppose that was the Governments Fault!!!!!!
There are no accidents in this business. Somebody screwed up, and it wasn’t the guy watching TV. If a business owner makes these kind of mistakes, mistakes which can kill and maim people, they should not be in business, for the safety of the community. No excuses, none
Surprising lack of shrapnel as a result of your explosive comment.
We and a neighbor had our roofs holed a few years back by someone dynamiting ledge at a building site nearby – no blasting mats, three times as much explosive as needed, no notification. Several people could have been killed but weren’t. Because it was unintended, you would call it an accident. The subcontractor was found not guilty of felony endangerment – Maine had no other applicable statutes at the time. The fire chief’s comment was “You need a permit to transport it, but any fool can set it off”. There are reasons for legal standards. Further back in time, more than a dozen workers were killed in various explosions in the small town where I grew up. Those were all accidents too. Accidents are not acts of God. They are things that happen unexpectedly that almost always could have been prevented by doing something else. People at agencies charged with the public’s safety investigate the sort of accidents mentioned above, identify risk factors, and recommend restrictions and penalties that are enacted or at least reviewed by elected officials. Where one size doesn’t fit all, you hope for some flexibility in enforcement. But there isn’t an excuse for not following the law when lives and property are at stake. The day when businesses could take avoidable risks with their workers and others is long gone. Was this truly a freak consequence of the geological formation or a blast that was just different than usual but within the realm of possibility? When you are using enough explosive to send rocks that far, why isn’t your safety standard the worst possible scenario rather than what usually works? You may say that how the blast turned out was unexpected, but violations of federal code aren’t accidents.
Re:
“Rich said he was home on the day of the blast watching the movie “Meteor” on his large-screen television when rocks started falling from the sky around his house. ”
Mr. Rich, I saw “Contagion”.
It was just okay, it was nothing special, so could you skip any urges to go see it, PLEASE ?