(Cambria) Current and former officials of a Columbia County company have been found guilty of safety violations in a deadly explosion. The U.S. Department of Justice provided information on the convictions in the catastrophic May 2017 blast at Didion Milling in Cambria that killed five workers and injured others.
A federal jury in Madison recently convicted Didion Vice President of Operations, Derrick Clark and former Didion Food Safety Superintendent Shawn Mesner of charges related to the blast.
Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division says the trial and convictions in this case show that compliance matters, and attempting to hide non-compliance, is not just a ‘technical’ violation. He adds that managers and officers who enable corporate cultures that tolerate, encourage or cover up violations, and who participate in falsifying documents and obstructing agency investigations, will and must be held accountable in addition to the corporations.
Former Didion environmental manager James Lenz was acquitted. Didion Milling previously pleaded guilty to falsifying cleaning logs and agreed to pay $11.2-million-dollars in penalties.
–WRN contributed
