The Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia, operating as WorkSafeBC, is a statutory agency that came into existence in 1917 has delivered the global mining and metal giant Rio Tinto a $678,889 fine, following the metal company was persistently alerted of a hazardous violation caused by air contaminants.
On 16th December 2021, the fine was imposed following a WorkSafeBC inspection of a building used for cleaning and servicing equipment at Rio Tinto’s Kitimat aluminium smelter.
However, the inspection was a follow-up from an endorsement in regards to governing workers’ exposure to process dust that contained toxic and carcinogenic substances such as beryllium.
WorkSafeBC stated “We had issued previous orders regarding the control of harmful airborne dust and accumulations. Rio Tinto used air pressure for cleaning, which then created a significant amount of process dust with no way to capture the dust.”
By imposing the latest fine, WorkSafeBC said “The control measures in place at the smelter facility did not include more effective engineering or administrative controls as required.”
“Rio Tinto failed to implement a plan to keep workers’ exposure as low as possible”, said WorkSafeBC.
Rio Tinto asserted they are yet to receive the full report on this violation and are tracking it down to better understand the context.
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Rio Tinto said, “Following inspections from WorkSafe BC, improvements have, and continue to be made to the building. On 5th October 2021, WorkSafeBC issued a notice of compliance confirming our control measures were adequate.”
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