Just over one year ago at the mining facility I work at, an operator hit one of the 12 kv power lines at our plant. What happened to the plant substation is that the main transformer and reactors exploded, and some of the lines out of the substation dropped to the ground. The plant was down for one week while PGE brought in a portable substation, and the lines were repaired. It was at this point that I learned that a testing company had examined the substation 6 months earlier, and found that the main overcurrent device in the substation had been bypassed, so that the plant could operate. So much for safety first. As it turns out, management knew of this situation, and did nothing. They did try to fire the operator, which would have been an injustice given the 6day 12 plus hour shifts everyone had been working. The plant manager at the time has since been promoted, and all others involved are doing fine in their careers. The true miracle is that no one was injured, as several people were under the power lines when they dropped. Management still seems to want to spend a dollar to save a dime, and it happens over and over. I have tried to explain to the junior manager that it will cost less upfront to buy better motors and equipment, than to go cheap, and have the plant not run for several hours or days while the problem is fixed. This, plus one miner having his leg cut off because of management wanting the work done faster has made me think I should be working elsewhere. When we screw up, we get fired, management gets promoted.
