The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has opened an investigation into the fire last Thursday that injured two workers at the ADA Carbon Solutions plant at Armistead.

Juan Rodriguez in the Dallas OSHA office told The Journal, “I can confirm an investigation is open and ongoing.  That is all that I can say until it is complete, usually about six months.”

The Journal also contacted the State Fire Marshall’s office.  A spokesperson said they were not called in to investigate.  He said usually the local fire department or local law enforcement calls in the Fire Marshall on an incident.

The company issued this news release:  Advanced Emissions Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADES) (the “Company” or “ADES”), the parent company of ADA-ES, Inc. and ADA Carbon Solutions, LLC (collectively, “ADA”), announced that it had an isolated incident at its Red River Plant in Coushatta, Louisiana April 22nd. The incident involved an isolated fire in one of the plant’s coal handling systems and resulted in non-life threatening injuries to two employees.

Greg Marken, Interim CEO of ADES, commented, “We are grateful that this incident was isolated and that our teammates appear to be on the road to recovery. Workplace safety is and will always be our number one priority. I’d like to commend the personnel at the plant for utilizing their safety training and their strong collective response immediately following the incident. The Company and I would also like to thank the first responders in the Coushatta area for their support and the excellent medical attention they provided for our teammates. We are currently conducting our own investigation into the incident and are working with local authorities as needed. At this time, we believe the plant will be down one-to-two weeks. We project to have adequate supply through our current inventory and through other sources to fulfill our commitments to customers through that projected downtime.”

The local VP of Marketing at ADA, Dennis Sewell told The Journal he could confirm that there was no explosion at the plant.  Otherwise, Sewell referred us to the company news release.

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