Report Detail:

12/31/03

Plain Dealer Reporters

Regulators repeatedly cited Garfield Alloys Inc. for fire, safety and environmental violations in the years leading up to the massive explosion Monday that destroyed the recycling plant, records show.

In the last 10 years, Garfield Heights fire-fighters responded to at least five fires at the site, as well as to calls about burning trash. But records show the company's buildings were not equipped with smoke detectors or sprinklers as recently as February 2001. No one was injured in those fires, nor were there any injuries Monday, when the 53-year-old business vanished in a series of blinding white explosions.

In 1991, one employee was killed and another injured in an explosion fuelled by magnesium, the highly flammable metal that the company recycled. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which monitors worker safety, fined the company more than $11,000 after the explosion. Six years later, fire inspectors concluded that the business did not comply with state fire codes, records show. The company's executives then submitted a plan to city officials to upgrade the site and store magnesium separately from its foundries by 2001.

It was unclear yesterday whether the company had fully complied with the plan before Monday's blaze. But records show fire inspectors deemed the facility "satisfactory" in November 2001. Three months later, 15 drums of magnesium ignited behind the company's main building. Again, no one was injured.

The company's executives did not return phone calls yesterday. In a written statement, Garfield Alloys' lawyer said the company "maintains the highest safety standards and is in full compliance with all applicable fire, health and safety requirements." Despite the company's work with volatile substances and the string of fires through the years, Garfield Alloys appears to have operated without rigid oversight from safety regulators.

Garfield Heights fire inspectors said they tried to visit the facility at least once a year, as they do with most of the city's businesses. Garfield Alloys is not among the businesses OSHA regularly monitors. Acting area director in OSHA's Cleveland office, said Garfield Alloys' employees did not miss work because of injury more than others in the industry, so the company did not warrant special attention.

OSHA inspectors last visited Garfield Alloys in February 2002, after the drum fire. They also reviewed company records in 2000. OSHA twice cited the company in 1998 for safety violations, resulting in $3,600 in fines, records show. Garfield Alloys also ran afoul of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. The company was fined four times for more than $95,000 from 1995 to 1999 for polluting a nearby stream, installing improper equipment and failing to make required reports, records show.

Garfield Heights - It was burning magnesium that caught the public's attention - white-hot flames, fireworks-like explosions, black tower of smoke.

But behind the scenes, what worried safety officials yesterday was not just the fire, but thousands of pounds of hazardous chemicals stored at the Garfield Alloys plant More than 24 hours after it began, the dramatic fire that destroyed the nation's largest magnesium recycling plant - and two nearby companies - continued to flare up and fire-fighters still didn't know what caused it. "It's the magnesium that's burning," said head of the Cuyahoga County Emergency Management Agency. "But it's the sulphur dioxide being stored there that's extremely hazardous."

That sulphur dioxide and 14 other toxic chemicals stored at Garfield Alloys disappeared with the plant. But teams of local, state and federal officials are trying to determine whether they were safely destroyed or they leaked into the air or water. At least 1,000 pounds of the gas sulphur dioxide was in the plant year-round. That information is according to the most recent chemical inventory the company filed with county safety officials. Federal officials have called sulphur dioxide extremely hazardous. When it is released into the air, the gas can irritate the skin, eyes, nose and throat and obstruct breathing.

Thousands of pounds of 14 other chemicals - all toxic but less hazardous than sulphur dioxide - also were kept on site, according to the chemical inventory. They included more than 1,000 pounds of explosive propane gas. If released, these 15 chemicals would pose a risk to people within a half-mile of the plant, according to an emergency management plan. More than 2,682 residents live within a "vulnerability zone" for Garfield Alloys.

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official, said the intense flames probably safely destroyed the chemicals. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will investigate the fire. Garfield Heights Mayor toured the scene yesterday after taking a late-night flight back to Cleveland from Arizona, where he was visiting family.

Garfield Alloys employs about 30 Steelworkers union members, said a representative with the local United Steelworkers of America. "There's going to be a layoff, obviously," he said. A lawyer for the company said it was in full compliance with safety laws. Interviews and records, however, show that the company struggled with safety issues through the 1990s, but had since improved. An Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation spokesman, said Garfield Alloys had a higher-than-expected number of injury claims in the mid-1990s compared with other companies in the industry.

From Jan. 1, 1993, through Dec. 31, 1998, Garfield Alloys employees filed 150 injury claims, and $828,000 in workers' compensation benefits were paid to those employees, according to workers' compensation records. Since Jan. 1, 1999, 80 claims have been filed and $154,000 in benefits paid to injured workers. The Bureau of Workers' Compensation spokesman said the company joined a bureau program to improve safety at the plant. "They've made significant improvements," he said. The plant has had eight other fires, including one in July 1991 that killed a worker, state fire marshal records show.

The fire that began Monday afternoon quickly claimed two Garfield Alloys buildings and the nearby Crescent Heat Treat Co. building in its first few hours. Fire-fighters concentrated on protecting a cluster of nearby storage trailers, along with the nearby Baumann Enterprises Inc. headquarters, to keep them from catching on fire. Though most of the trailers survived, the Baumann building caught fire early yesterday morning and burned until only the shell remained.

Fire-fighters said they knew early on they could not soak the magnesium to put out the fire, so they had to let any portions that caught fire burn. Instead, they soaked buildings next to the blaze to prevent them from getting too hot and igniting. If those caught fire, fire-fighters had to stop spraying so they would not make the fire worse. "Once it starts spreading to the water, you have to back up," Garfield Heights Fire Chief said late Monday.

Residents of the Garfield Club Apartments evacuated their homes early Monday evening, but when the wind stopped blowing the smoke and sparks to the east and over Broadway Avenue, homes near the apartments on the west were also evacuated. A local resident had taken shelter several miles away at a daughter's home in Garfield Heights, but she could still hear the explosions and see flashes of light. Explosions throughout the night shattered windows in the apartments. "With all that boom, boom, boom, I was thankful no one got hurt," she said, who returned to her apartment last night. "That's a scary thing to have happen so close." The owner of a Corvette repair shop close to Garfield Alloys, spent an anxious night worrying that his business would suffer another major loss. In the early 1990s, the garage was damaged by a severe flood. "That fire just didn't quit," he said yesterday, watching the embers smoulder and flare. "It just kept going and I definitely was scared. You just can't stop that stuff."

© 2003 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission