OSHA Fines Amalgamated over Accidental Death

 On May 15 an absolutely gruesome accident occurred at the Amalgamated Sugar plant in Nampa when longtime employee, Mario Munoz was pulled into an auger while he was working alone in a small, enclosed area during a silo-cleaning accident. The cause of death was ruled as being from blunt force trauma and suffocation.

 In a statement on Thursday, company CEO Vic Jaro again expressed condolences for Munoz, who worked for Amalgamated Sugar for 21 years. Jaro says the company is committed to minimizing any risks in the future. OSHA records show there have been six fatal accidents at Amalgamated Sugar facilities in Idaho since 1985.

Dave Kearns, assistant area director for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said an investigation into the accident did not fully resolve questions regarding the death of Munoz but did have this to say: “To summarize what has happened is we’ve done an investigation and at the conclusion of that investigation we issued a citation with 3 items dealing with machine guarding issues.”

Along with citations there were almost $19,000 in fines.