BATON ROUGE, La.—A Colorado company has been indicted in federal court here in the death of a man who was killed when he opened a mislabeled cylinder containing hazardous material in 2003.
Chemical & Metals Industries Inc. is charged on counts of negligent endangerment resulting in death, and illegal storage of hazardous waste in the Monday indictment. The victim was Delvin Henry of Baton Rouge, a 32-year-old employee of Honeywell International of Baton Rouge.
U.S. Attorney David Dugas said the investigation originally centered on Honeywell before leading to C&MI. He said C&MI neglected to test the contents of a cylinder Honeywell marked as hazardous waste and sent to C&MI for recycling in October 1998.
According to the indictment, the cylinder contained a spent catalyst, a deadly byproduct of a cooling substance. The cylinder was at one point mislabled as a refrigerant.
On July 29, 2003, Henry opened the mislabeled cylinder at Honeywell, releasing a portion of the 1,800 pounds of highly toxic and corrosive spent catalyst. Henry suffered third-degree burns and died the next day. No one else was injured.
In February 2007, Honeywell pleaded guilty in federal court to negligently placing another person in imminent danger of death and causing the release of hazardous air pollutants.
U.S. District Judge Ralph Tyson sentenced the company to two years probation, an $8 million criminal fine, $2 million in restitution to Henry’s family and $2 million to local law-enforcement agencies. That settlement is the largest criminal fine and restitution award in the history of Baton Rouge federal court, Dugas said.
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Information from: The Advocate,
