Ohio paint company pleads guilty in 2021 explosion that killed worker

An Ohio corporation pleaded guilty this week in federal court in the Southern District of Ohio to negligent endangerment stemming from a 2021 explosion that killed one employee and severely injured several others, according to the Justice Department.

Yenkin Majestic Paint Corporation operated a coatings and resin manufacturing facility in Columbus, prosecutors said. As part of its resin manufacturing process, the company heated ingredients in large steel vessels called “kettles.” In 2020, Yenkin decided to fabricate and install a new door, or “manway,” on top of Kettle 3, working with a local fabrication company to complete the installation that December.

Despite previous high-pressure spikes in Kettle 3, the company never pressure-tested the new manway before returning the kettle to service, prosecutors said. Once installed, the manway immediately began leaking. Yenkin nevertheless continued using Kettle 3 and added a thicker gasket that it mistakenly believed was made of Teflon but was actually silicone, according to the release.

On April 8, 2021, while Yenkin was producing resin in Kettle 3, the vessel’s agitator stopped, likely because of electrical work the company was conducting at the time, officials said. Around midnight, an operator who was unaware that the agitator had stopped turned it back on, causing the contents to vaporize and pressure to build. The manway and gasket could no longer contain the pressure, releasing hot resin liquid and flammable solvent vapor into the resin plant and adjacent operating areas, according to prosecutors.

Flammable gas detectors registered rising concentrations of vapor, but the devices were not configured to sound an audible alarm, the release states. At 12:04 a.m., the vapors reached an ignition source and exploded, killing one employee, severely injuring several others and damaging the resin plant and nearby structures.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said the company’s actions “created a manufacturing environment that resulted in death and severe injury,” adding that officials hope the case encourages other manufacturers to protect workers and operate equipment properly.

Jeffrey Hall, assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said companies that use hazardous chemicals must prevent releases that endanger workers and the public. U.S. Attorney Dominick Gerace II for the Southern District of Ohio said the case underscores that safety requirements must be followed. Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson and Ohio EPA Director John Logue also described the guilty plea as a measure of accountability and emphasized the importance of environmental safeguards.

The case was investigated by the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Ohio EPA Special Investigations Unit, with support from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Senior Trial Attorney Adam Cullman of the Environment and Natural Resources Division, who is also an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and Assistant U.S. Attorney David Twombly are prosecuting the case.