Vale, Sudbury employees charged – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – March 31, 2015)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The Ministry of Labour has laid nine charges against Vale Canada Ltd. and eight charges against three company employees in the April 6, 2014, death of millwright Paul Rochette at Vale’s Copper Cliff Smelter Complex.

Rochette, 36, died from injuries to the head after a large piston or moil operating under pressure, crushing ingots of nickel under pressure, released from an area of a processing system at the smelter.

A second man, 28, who has never been identified, also suffered injuries to the face and head. Vale has been charged under the Occupational Health and Safety Act with failing to:

– Ensure that while work was being done on the Farrel crusher, any gravity stored energy was dissipated or contained;

– Ensure that while work was being done on the Farrel crusher, all energy isolating devices were properly engaged, locked and tagged;

– Provide information, instruction and supervision to workers on a safe procedure to remove a broken moil point from the jaws of the Farrel crusher;

– Take one or both of the following reasonable precautions while workers were attempting to remove oversized obstructions/material and/or a broken moil point from the Farrel crusher: The defendant failed to ensure any gravity stored energy was dissipated or contained; and/or the defendant failed to ensure all energy isolating devices were properly engaged, locked and tagged;

– Provide a safe means of access to the operating compartment of the Volvo matte breaker;

– Ensure the head pulley and/or drive pulley of the No. 87 conveyor were guarded at any pinch point that is or may become accessible;

– Ensure the belt on the magnet and/or the drive of the belt magnet at the top of the 87 belt were guarded;

– Ensure one or more of the following parts of the number 88 conveyor were guarded at any pinch point that is or may become accessible: the tail pulley in the pit beneath the Farrell Crusher and the drive pulleys and shafts at the Symons Crusher;

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