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A large fine to the entity will only serve to further increase the rates charged to those of us that are REQUIRED by our residency in certain areas to use the services.  I would prefer that any large dollar amount go to those injured, instead of to line the pockets of some government agency. 

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28 minutes ago, disgruntled said:

A large fine to the entity will only serve to further increase the rates charged to those of us that are REQUIRED by our residency in certain areas to use the services.  I would prefer that any large dollar amount go to those injured, instead of to line the pockets of some government agency. 

In some states the worker compensation laws prevent lawsuits from being filed.

 

What If The Employer Was At Fault For The Death?

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration could levy fines or penalties if it determines that the worker’s employer violated safety rules or regulations, but fines and penalties do nothing to help the family of a worker killed on the job. The Pennsylvania workers’ compensation system, however, may provide financial assistance to the surviving family members.

What If A Third Party Was At Fault For The Death?

Family members also may be entitled to compensation through a negligence claim when a third party is responsible for a worker’s death.

 

http://www.bulldoglawyers.com/workers-compensation-lawyer/death-benefits

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Investigation looking into sludges as part of Greentree landslide

 

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is still looking into what caused the landslide that killed William Pierce, and the cracks that developed at the site. (WJAC)

KERSEY – For the most part, we know what goes into a landfill.

Food scraps, paper, plastics -- it’s trash. That’s what we throw in our dumpsters.

What we don’t see, though, are sludges. Sludge can be described at times like top soil. Other times, it's a wet, mud-like product.

 
 

One investigation continues into the February collapse at Greentree Landfill.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is still looking into what caused the landslide that killed William Pierce, and the cracks that developed at the site.

OSHA finished its investigation in August, but back in April, DEP officials confirmed that sludges are a part of its ongoing investigation. The department won’t say to what extent sludge may be involved, only confirming a few details, including that it’s “reviewing the composition and handling of these sludges.”

According to DEP officials, sludge should be mixed with incoming waste and garbage and spread on the current working face to insure structural stability.

John Shoeman is the plant operator at the Logan Township Treatment Plant. His job is getting clean water back out to his local community. The byproduct of that process is sludge.

Shoeman said waste comes into the plant, it’s processed and by day’s end, a portion of the waste is removed and sent to anaerobic digester tanks. The sludge stays in the tanks for about six months at a time. Then, the sludge is pressed and hauled off to a landfill.

Sewer manager David Pozgar said in Logan Township’s case, their sludges are usually hauled to Greentree. Except this year, they weren’t because of the landslide.

“Because of the problems this year with Greentree, we had to press and hold a box in here for two weeks before we could even send it,” Pozgar said.

The DEP approved a special permit for Logan Township to give sludge annually to Greentree in 2013, according to the most recent DEP documents. Pozgar said his plant produces 320 tons of sludge a year. He said the Township pays the landfill about $18,000 to take in the sludge.

That total tonnage is part of at least 173,000 tons of new sludge that Greentree took in since January 2013, numbers compiled from state records show.

On Monday, an OSHA spokesman said they evaluated sludge intake procedures as part of their investigation.

On Tuesday, another spokesperson provided additional details, saying, “Blending sludge material and solid waste was supposed to be part of a regular procedure for receiving sludge at the landfill. However, during the course of the inspection, it was determined that the procedure may not have been followed for every single delivery of sludge material, and/or the procedure may not have been correct.”

After the collapse, state records show Greentree cut sludge intake into the landfill to 92 tons.

That was March 13. A month later, DEP officials said Greentree temporarily stopped bringing in municipal sewage sludge.

In June, the DEP allowed Greentree to resume accepting sludge. DEP officials said waste must be “disposed in a new cell away from the cell where the landslide occurred.”

The DEP investigation is ongoing. DEP officials have not determined what caused the landslide, only saying they are looking at sludges as part of the investigation.

As for OSHA, they did not pinpoint an exact cause of the landslide, saying it was likely a combination of events.                                                                                                    SEE VIDEO REPORT;   http://wjactv.com/news/local/investigation-looking-into-sludges-as-part-of-greentree-landslide

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On Saturday, August 19, 2017 at 3:59 AM, mr.d said:

Investigation looking into sludges as part of Greentree landslide

 

 

On Tuesday, another spokesperson provided additional details, saying, “Blending sludge material and solid waste was supposed to be part of a regular procedure for receiving sludge at the landfill. However, during the course of the inspection, it was determined that the procedure may not have been followed for every single delivery of sludge material, and/or the procedure may not have been correct.”

 

Ok, so define that procedure? If I wanted to floor in an entire cell with sludge, there is nothing but common sense stopping me from doing that. What percentage of sludge is too much to maintain a stable working face? How many tons of trash have to be available to mix with X amount of sludge? What do you do when it's raining and the sludge coming in doubles? What do you do when you are sliver filling an outside slope, where you can't put sludge?

The simple answer to all of those questions is to set a limit on how much you can take, but when a government office makes a vague statement about "improper handling" after a fatality, then there is nothing these companies will change. They can just point at Greentree and say "They handled it wrong, won't happen to us".

I'm just so disgusted by all of this, I thought it may bring about change, but it looks like it won't happen

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On ‎8‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 11:16 PM, fedup said:

Come on Steel, your smarter than that. Your vote is a, YES, I am comfy with you. You claim to do all this research before you vote.

If you actually researched the truth you would never pull a lever for the TPD.

 My guess is you look for a reason not to vote for one then you vote for the other.

 Can't you see what your doing?

 You vote for evil believing your evil is better.

Steel's question remains unanswered. It's a fair question. How will not voting change anything?

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On 8/22/2017 at 11:10 AM, landfillguy said:

Ok, so define that procedure? If I wanted to floor in an entire cell with sludge, there is nothing but common sense stopping me from doing that. What percentage of sludge is too much to maintain a stable working face? How many tons of trash have to be available to mix with X amount of sludge? What do you do when it's raining and the sludge coming in doubles? What do you do when you are sliver filling an outside slope, where you can't put sludge?

The simple answer to all of those questions is to set a limit on how much you can take, but when a government office makes a vague statement about "improper handling" after a fatality, then there is nothing these companies will change. They can just point at Greentree and say "They handled it wrong, won't happen to us".

I'm just so disgusted by all of this, I thought it may bring about change, but it looks like it won't happen

You are catching on to PA politics. It's a horror which the citizens of the state never seem to have the will to change.

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7 minutes ago, soccermom said:

You are catching on to PA politics. It's a horror which the citizens of the state never seem to have the will to change.

I think this is a national politics issue. Any decision made in PA would affect the entire industry, so just pay up and move on :censored:

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5 minutes ago, landfillguy said:

I think this is a national politics issue. Any decision made in PA would affect the entire industry, so just pay up and move on :censored:

So noted, but I'm describing PA politics and what we're up against. We have the past AG sentenced to jail, and people in charge who ignored years of child abuse in several high profile cases. It doesn't get much worse than that, but the citizenry doesn't ever fight much against it all.

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I plead with the employees to make a stand over this. I know some of you guys are reading this thread, and the opportunity is slipping away. I'm just some guy on the internet, what I say goes only so far, and I can't say too much for fear of my job. You guys were there, you know what happened. This is not right. Decisions were made that led directly to that disaster, and even if Mr. Pierce's family gets a settlement for millions of dollars, where does that leave the rest of us? This isn't a local issue, this is a nationwide issue, and you guys are in the spotlight for a brief time. You guys could make some noise that would affect change for all of the rest of us. I understand why you don't speak up, I have mouths to feed, too, but what are you defending? Just Google "landfill slide". It's just a matter of time...

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14 minutes ago, michael880 said:

Good time to form a union. Don't settle for a no walkout clause either.

There's no union here, and I would be screaming from the rooftops if this was happening. I can get another job

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16 minutes ago, michael880 said:

So if something like this was happening at where you work and the crew walks off because they feel it's unsafe you would let them keep their jobs?

I understand your point, and I would be right behind them, but no, they would lose their jobs. I wouldn't need a union to take care of me, I would leave because the company didn't care about me. It's not even a union debate, and I can't get into that because I have no experience with them. Those are just my personal feelings

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5 hours ago, landfillguy said:

I plead with the employees to make a stand over this. I know some of you guys are reading this thread, and the opportunity is slipping away. I'm just some guy on the internet, what I say goes only so far, and I can't say too much for fear of my job. You guys were there, you know what happened. This is not right. Decisions were made that led directly to that disaster, and even if Mr. Pierce's family gets a settlement for millions of dollars, where does that leave the rest of us? This isn't a local issue, this is a nationwide issue, and you guys are in the spotlight for a brief time. You guys could make some noise that would affect change for all of the rest of us. I understand why you don't speak up, I have mouths to feed, too, but what are you defending? Just Google "landfill slide". It's just a matter of time...

You are right. There needs to be noise from the employees.

https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights

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13 hours ago, michael880 said:

I understand what yet saying but there's not many managers around that would go to bat for their employees. To me the biggest reason for union is unsafe work places. Around here good paying jobs are few and far between.  So just leaving isn't much of an option when yer feeding a family. 

It could well be that a union would have protected the employees if they walked off, but highly doubtful that a union could have prevented that collapse. Does a union have any control over work practices? I don't know, I'm just not experienced with them. I know that people knew it was moving, but I don't know how scared they were. There was video, even after the collapse, of an operator riding a loader around the rim of the crater when someone called him down. I can't imagine that anyone actually thought the entire cell would collapse. Maybe they weren't scared, I just don't know.

Even without a union, there are anti-retaliation laws to protect employees. I would assume there is an HR department where employees can voice concerns anonymously. Our HR hotline number is posted beside the time clock. Unions are not big in the south, not because we run them out, but because as employers we try to provide a workplace where employees don't feel like they need them. OSHA has a whistleblower section on their website where you can voice concerns anonymously. It's not like these companies have total control over employees and can do anything they want, there are laws to protect them.

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23 minutes ago, michael880 said:

Unions create safety committees that the employers have to follow that go beyond oshas requirments. 

I can see where the safety aspect of the union could be beneficial, especially if the company, or certain employees of the company, were committing unsafe acts, but a safety committee couldn't have prevented that collapse. I have a safety committee at my landfill, and we aren't union. You wouldn't believe the safety and HR training that I am required to attend every year. That's an operations issue, and ultimately the operations of a landfill are the call of the manager. If the operators were told to do something that was unsafe, and they knew it was unsafe, then maybe a committee would have helped. If the operators didn't know, nothing would have changed. It's not the responsibility of the operators to safely construct a landfill, that's not what they are paid to do. There are operations plans, fill sequences, that are designed by engineers that have to be followed. The engineers don't communicate with the employees, that's what I am paid to do

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1 minute ago, michael880 said:

And you would have to go through the union safety guidelines to create your cells. You wouldn't be an operator without years of apprenticeship. 

I disagree about the cells. Those are designed by engineers, and constructed by third party contractors. They are heavily monitored by third party inspectors during all phases to meet federal requirements. Waste companies don't have the equipment to build cells, cells have to meet federal regulations before they are certified. What happens in the cell after construction is a different story, and that's where the issue is that I have been complaining about since February.

Like I said, I'm not debating the validity of a union, this is not a union issue

 

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On 8/23/2017 at 5:19 PM, landfillguy said:

I plead with the employees to make a stand over this. I know some of you guys are reading this thread, and the opportunity is slipping away. I'm just some guy on the internet, what I say goes only so far, and I can't say too much for fear of my job. You guys were there, you know what happened. This is not right. Decisions were made that led directly to that disaster, and even if Mr. Pierce's family gets a settlement for millions of dollars, where does that leave the rest of us? This isn't a local issue, this is a nationwide issue, and you guys are in the spotlight for a brief time. You guys could make some noise that would affect change for all of the rest of us. I understand why you don't speak up, I have mouths to feed, too, but what are you defending? Just Google "landfill slide". It's just a matter of time...

From the very beginning many of us have feared that it will all be settled with a fine and everything would be swept under a rug. I know that the employees are afraid of losing their jobs, no union-no protection, PA is an at will state. And these folks have families and aren't earning a lot of money as it is. The whole mess is just so sad because a life was lost, and it could have been many more. 

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On 8/24/2017 at 9:17 AM, michael880 said:

Unions create safety committees that the employers have to follow that go beyond oshas requirments. 

I've worked in both union and non-union businesses and in union and non-union positions within them, and have had safety committees in every one of them.  I can't say a union environment today is universally better for employees with all of the laws and agencies involved and available to protect workers.  What I do see is people who fear for their jobs find comfort in expecting union protection to keep their jobs.  The other side of that is I see unions protecting employees who should not be working at the expense of better workers.  It's a two way street and I personally was better served working in a non-union position, where others may not have been.

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