The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the Point Reyes National Seashore Association last month for two “serious” violations related to inadequate pest management protocol.
The finding came after an investigation prompted by the organization’s former bookstore manager, Devin Currens, who was fired in September over accusations of insubordination and restrained from key employees by court order in November.
Mr. Currens has spoken out publicly against the group in recent months and filed numerous complaints, including whistleblower complaints.
PRNSA had 15 days after receiving the citation notice to pay or appeal the fines. It could also request an informal conference with the area director to discuss the violations.
Samaria Jaffe, the executive director of PRNSA—the nonprofit that funds conservation and educational programs in the Point Reyes National Seashore—told the Light this week that the group is “reviewing the report and discussing it with OSHA.”
Mr. Currens, a Washington State native who worked for PRNSA for almost three years before he was fired, claims he suffered severe respiratory problems after cleaning up dead rodents last winter at the Drakes Beach bookstore. The facility had been closed for some time, and Mr. Currens said Ms. Jaffe pressured him to open the shop during a visit by a consultant. (The nonprofit’s lawyers say that claim is “utterly false and without merit.”)
“She was standing 4 feet away as a decomposed rodent ripped in half in my face,” Mr. Currens wrote to OSHA. “I have been very sick ever since.”
Although PRNSA told OSHA during the investigation that it had standard practices of conducting a full pest control survey prior to re-entering a closed facility and providing employees with protective equipment whenever necessary, OSHA determined that PRNSA violated two federal safety requirements—a personal protective equipment hazard assessment and employee training in the use of personal protective equipment.
“I have never been told about any procedure involving pest control,” Mr. Currens told OSHA. “I have received no training on any procedures regarding any aspect of facilities management… And yet I had been solely responsible for managing a National Park Service building with a documented rodent problem for nearly three years.”
OSHA deemed the two violations “serious,” a category applied to instances “when the workplace hazard could cause an accident or illness that would most likely result in death or serious physical harm, unless the employer did not know or could not have known of the violation.”
The category is one rung above “other-than-serious” and one below “willful” violations, which are “defined as a violation in which the employer either knowingly failed to comply with a legal requirement (purposeful disregard) or acted with plain indifference to employee safety.”
The ceiling for the fines for serious violations is $12,600, far above PRNSA’s two $1,630 a piece fines. OSHA can reduce fines for a number of reasons, including to reflect a small number of employees or a “good faith” effort to implement an effective workplace safety and health management system.