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Florida Power pays fine for safety problems
By ALEX LEARY
© St. Petersburg Times, CRYSTAL RIVER -- Florida Power Corp. has paid a $3,000 fine for safety hazards cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But the utility successfully defended other charges, avoiding more than $9,000 in additional penalties proposed by the federal agency. A settlement between the two parties resulted in Florida Power paying $1,500 each for two issues at one of its fly ash silos, part of the coal burning operation. The first safety concern was a walking surface consisting of three pipes that were 111/2 inches apart. Employees could have fallen to the ground 50 feet below. The second, OSHA said, was the use of a rope as a handrail on a platform outside the silo. Two other citations, dealing with insufficient guardrails, were dropped "on the ground that the evidence now available does not appear to sustain the violations as alleged," court documents state. An OSHA official in Tampa refused to discuss the settlement, which was approved by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission in Washington. Florida Power spokesman Mac Harris was unavailable Thursday. When the complaints were made public in May, Florida Power contested the guardrail allegations and said the other problems had been addressed. The initial fines totaled $12,375. Harris earlier attributed the deficiencies to the original design of the complex, which was built between the late 1960s and early 1980s. He said Florida Power, a subsidiary of Progress Energy, spent $5-million in the past three years addressing design problems.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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