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State investigators are trying to figure out why 15 members
of a 16-person cleanup crew became ill and 13 were
hospitalized Wednesday and Thursday for respiratory problems
and fever while cleaning a sugar beet plant at Renville,
Minn. The city is about 100 miles west of the Twin Cities.
"We just don't know what happened, whether it was
something wrong in the plant or even something outside of
the plant," said Al Ritacco, president and CEO of the
Southwest Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative. "We're
trying to think of everything, then checking it out."
Officials of the Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) and the Minnesota Department of Health
were on the scene Thursday going over the plant. The plant
was in a normal maintenance shut-down phase in preparation
for the fall sugar beet harvest, which starts in about three
weeks.
The cleaning crew from VEIT Environmental Inc. of Rogers
had been on the job since Sunday and began feeling ill
Tuesday afternoon, said Dave Sobieski, operations manager
for VEIT.
At about 10 a.m. Wednesday, while still at a nearby
motel, 12 crew members became acutely ill with breathing
problems and fevers and went to the emergency room at Rice
Memorial hospital in Willmar, 30 miles north of Renville.
Ten were admitted and one was treated and released. However,
that man returned later and was admitted.
Two more workers with similar complaints came to the
hospital Thursday morning, and one was admitted, said Peggy
Sietsema, chief nursing officer at the hospital. Another was
on his way to the hospital for treatment, she said late
Thursday.
Of the 13 hospitalized, seven were still in stable
condition and being treated there Thursday afternoon. Two or
three of them were expected to be released soon, she said.
The work involved using tap water in high-pressure hoses
to clean evaporators that reduce sugar juice into sugar, a
job done every year in late summer, Ritacco said.
Sobieski said crew members wore protective suits even
though the job is considered nonhazardous since no solvents
or other chemicals are used. They didn't wear masks.
"We don't think it could be the water or our
equipment," he said. "Our safety guy has been
there, and we just don't know yet what caused the
problem." |