Federal prosecutors announced Monday that DuPont has been ordered to pay $16 million and has received two years of probation for its role in a 2014 gas leak that killed four workers at a Houston area plant.
Four employees at DuPont’s former chemical plant in LaPorte, Texas, were killed when methyl mercaptan, a chemical used in insecticide and fungicide, was released, according to NBC 5 DFW.
U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani attributed the deaths to “DuPont’s criminal negligence,” according to CBS News.
“The sentence imposed today sends a clear message of my office’s dedication to holding managers at industrial facilities, and the corporations that own and operate those facilities, accountable for violations of … laws meant to protect the safety of workers and nearby communities,” said Hamdani, per CBS News.
At the court hearing, DuPont and Kenneth Sandel, who ran the unit at the LaPorte plant where the accident occurred, both plead guilty to one count of a negligent release of a highly hazardous substance, according to CBS News.
The ruling ordered DuPont to serve two years of probation, granting federal officials access to the company’s locations, and to pay $12 million in criminal penalties and a $4 million community service payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Sandel was ordered to serve one year of probation, per CBS News.
Corteva, a spinoff from DuPont that runs its agricultural business, said it “deeply regrets” the leak.
“We are committed to the highest safety standards, and safety is a core value,” the company said.
The day before the incident, DuPont engineers and Sandel allegedly devised a plan to divert methyl mercaptan gas into a waste gas pipeline system, MarketWatch reported.
The prosecution claims Sandel failed to implement procedures to assess the plan’s safety, and the unit where the workers died lacked proper ventilation or air monitoring, per MarketWatch.
DuPont permanently closed the plant in 2016, the outlet reported.
A lawyer representing one of the workers who died said jail time for executives would have been more effective in preventing such fatalities in the future.
“It remains to the general public to believe whether or not… probation is fair criminal punishment for somebody whose decision led to several highly avoidable and painful deaths,” attorney Brent Coon said per MarketWatch.
