SALEM - The federal agency that cited Salem Harbor Station last year for a number of violations in connection with the 2007 accident that killed three workers has dropped the most serious charge.

In a settlement agreement, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration deleted a citation that accused the power plant of allowing poor working conditions that exposed workers to "burns and serious bodily harm."
It was the only citation out of 10 in OSHA's report last May that pertained to the Nov. 6, 2007, accident.

In the agreement announced yesterday, OSHA also reduced or dropped other charges and cut the total fines in half to $23,000.
At the same time, however, Dominion Energy New England, the owner of the Salem power plant, has agreed to inspect and clean the lower section of its giant coal-fired boilers every two years.
The lower area of Boiler No. 3 at the Salem plant, which was filled with so much ash that entry was blocked, is where the accident occurred and an area that two separate investigations concluded had not been inspected in years.

Both Dominion and OSHA saw this agreement, which was reached between lawyers for the two sides, as vindication.
"The citation is gone, but the corrective action is not," said Ted Fitzgerald, an OSHA spokesman. "The company will take those steps not just at Salem Harbor Station, but at any other coal-fired boilers" it has in New England.

Dominion also owns Brayton Point, a larger coal-burning power plant in Somerset.

"This is a settlement that goes beyond what would have been required had we gone to trial and prevailed," Fitzgerald said.
The company saw this action much differently.

It is proof, a spokesman said, of what Dominion has said all along - that Salem Harbor Station is a safe plant and that there was no requirement to inspect the so-called "dead air" space in the lower part of the boilers.

The employees who died in November 2007 were killed by a blast of superheated steam and ash from a ruptured tube in the lower section of Boiler No. 3, one of four boilers at the waterfront plant.
"The fact we lost three of our employees in that accident is something we will never forget and our employees will never forget ..." said Dan Genest, a spokesman at Dominion's headquarters in Virginia.

"But, in our view, we think it's very important that our employees know and have confidence that they are working in a safe work environment. And, in our view, OSHA agreed to drop the main citation concerning the accident because Dominion did and does maintain a safe workplace.

"Ultimately, OSHA recognized that Dominion's conduct did not cause the accident and that there was not an industry-recognized, normal inspection or testing practice that would have detected a 50-year-old weld defect that caused the accident."
While a weld defect was found as the primary cause, a subsequent state investigation found that corrosion in this lower area exacerbated conditions and that the corrosion would have been spotted in regular inspections.

Last May, OSHA cited Dominion for 10 "serious violations" and more than $46,000 in fines. In this final agreement, four of the violations have been dropped, three reduced and three unchanged.

In July, the state Department of Public Safety also issued findings harshly critical of the plant, a company engineer and an outside insurance inspector. Appeals are pending.