Trial set for company charged in fatal workplace ammonia leak
By Medicine Hat News on May 9, 2018.
Not guilty pleas were entered Wednesday by a company charged following an ammonia leak at CF Industries in 2015 that left one worker dead and another injured. A multi-day trial for Aluma Systems Inc. was set down for Feb. 4 -15, 2019, for charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The company is charged with two counts of failure to ensure the health and safety of the workers, failure to take measures to eliminate or control a hazard, failure to ensure a hazard assessment was repeated when a work process or operation changed, and failure to provide safeguards where a worker could accidentally, or through the work process, come into contact with a hazard. The charges are from Dec. 7, 2015, when two workers with Aluma Systems were on an aerial work platform, in the bucket at the CF Industries site. The vehicle struck a bleed pipe valve containing pressurized ammonia, and the ammonia was released. One worker was taken to hospital and later pronounced dead, while the other suffered burns to his body. 5-4
