OSHA Inspection: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE

Issued

Nov 7, 2008

Abate by

Sep 15, 2009

Penalty

Initial $12,500

General-duty citation text

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970: The
employer did not
furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from
recognized hazards
that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to
employees in that
employees were exposed to a potential contact and/or inhalation hazard
from toxic
substances:
a.Mail handling areas - 05/22/08 An SDO was observed to contact an
unidentified powder which had been found in a tray in Manual Letters and
in a
bin on the processing equipment.
b.Mail handling areas - In the incident on 05/22/08 the area SDO directed
two
processing clerks in the area of the spill to tie down the cases on either
side of
the one where the unidentified powder was found. This occurred prior to the
arrival of the designated first responders.
c.Mail handling areas - In the incident on 05/22/08 two 204B acting
managers,
and the MDO approached the area to examine the unidentified powder found
on the processing equipment.
d.Mail handling areas - 06/19/08 A supervisor and a maintenance supervisor
were observed to contact an unidentified powder.
e.Mail handling areas - In the incident on 06/19/08 the supervisor, prior
to
notifying the response team, brought a maintenance employee to examine an
unidentified powder on the machine.
THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE WAS PREVIOUSLY CITED FOR VIOLATION OF THIS
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH STANDARD OR ITS EQUIVALENT
STANDARD WHICH WAS CONTAINED IN OSHA INSPECTIONS:
NUMBER 309551455, CITATION NUMBER 1, ITEM NUMBER 1, WITH A
FINAL ORDER DATE OF 7/2/07, WITH RESPECT TO A WORKPLACE
LOCATED AT 195 SYKES MOUNTAIN AVENUE, WHITE RIVER JUNCTION,
VERMONT;
AND NUMBER 309557577, CITATION NUMBER 1, ITEM NUMBER 1, WITH A
FINAL ORDER DATE OF 10/15/07, WITH RESPECT TO A WORKPLACE
LOCATED AT 195 SYKES MOUNTAIN AVENUE, WHITE RIVER JUNCTION,
VERMONT.
ABATEMENT NOTE: Among others, one means of abatement would be to follow
Settlement Agreement for Inspection No. 309551455, Docket No. 06-1919
which states in
paragraph (4)(b): "Respondent agrees that a qualified outside specialists
or an appropriately
trained Postal Inspection Services inspector will handle and clean-up all
spills of unknown
material; if Respondent cannot determine the contents of a package through
contacting the
Sender or Addressee, the unknown material will be isolated without
exposing untrained
personnel until one of the above referenced specialists arrives at the
site to conduct clean up.Another useful abatement would be to develop a
method to more reliably identify roller dust.
Currently rollers are various colors and regularly break down to release
dust.  Powders
initially identified visually as roller dust have been subsequently found
to be other materials.