The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has announced the publication of a final rule for shipyard worker safety.  The final rule has been published in the May 2 Federal Register, and is meant to be an update to earlier shipyard regulations that have been left unchanged for decades. Shipyard worker safety rules were established back...

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One of the factors that ultimately contributed to the deadly Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion last year was the lack of adequate inspection and oversight by the federal administration.  Currently, lone inspectors are sent for inspections of oil rigs.  That could soon change, with the federal administration announcing that from now on, teams o...

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A California man is the sole confirmed fatality in a deadly fishing boat accident off Baja California.  At least seven people are still missing.   The missing tourists were part of a fishing expedition in Mexico, when their vessel overturned in the early hours of Saturday morning.  The Mexican Navy and the US Coast Guard are continuing efforts t...

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In Texas, boating accident fatality numbers per 100,000 registered boaters are more than twice the national average.  It is these statistics that have resulted in the drafting of legislation that would require mandatory boater education. A new piece of legislation that has been proposed by Representative Dan Parker, Republican-Flower Mound, wou...

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Russian authorities are promising tough action against a riverboat operator after a deadly boat accident in the Volga River that has left more than 100 people dead.     The boat capsized on Sunday.  73 people have been confirmed dead.  Dozens more, including children are still missing.  Hopes for more survivors have been dimming.   The dead ...

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The National Transportation Safety Board has released its final findings after an investigation into the 2009 boating accident in the San Diego Bay that killed a young boy.  According to the report, the accident was the result of excessive speeds by the Coast Guard boat involved in the accident as well as lack of oversight by the Coast Guard. T...

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A 27 year-old recreational diver went missing Sunday, July 24, 2011, off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts.  The diver was part of a group aboard the dive charter vessel John Jack.  The dive group was exploring the wreckage of the Andrea Doria.   The Andrea Doria lies in about 200 feet of water.  It is an Italian luxury vessel which sank a...

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An important piece of offshore safety legislation that would have clearly defined how drilling safety plans in US waters should progress, is currently left hanging after lawmakers disagreed over revenue sharing payments to states.  The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was debating legislation that would enhance offshore drilling sa...

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The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has been strongly focused on increasing offshore worker safety and preventing accidents like the Gulf of Mexico BP explosion last year.  The agency has had its work cut out for it, as it struggles to deal with years of ineptitude, negligence and inappropriate relationships between...

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From commercial fishing vessel crew members to offshore oil rig workers, all kinds of maritime workers may be at risk of head and brain injuries.  These are some of the most serious injuries, and can leave a person with long lifelong consequences.  A new study confirms yet another one of those long-term effects of a brain injury.  The study sugg...

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Tug boat pilot, Matthew Devlin, pled guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge on Monday, August 1, 2011.  Two tourists died from the accident on July 7, 2010, when a barge crashed into a duck boat that was stalled in the Delaware River.  The operator did not receive notice that the duck boat was stopped in his path because he had turned his ...

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A crane collapsed while loading equipment onto a work boat, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement report.  On Tuesday, August 16, 2011, the boom hoist cable failed, killing one worker on the site in the Gulf of Mexico.  The platform, owned by Energy Resource Technology, is now the site of an investigation...

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The Coast Guard published plans to implement a new inspection process for towing vessels last week.  In the 76th volume of the Federal Register released on August 11, the Coast Guard posted their proposed rules.  They plan to finalize the regulations in four public meetings this fall.  The new system will have two options for obtaining safety ce...

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Royal Dutch Shell is trying to defend its offshore safety record, after attacks by environmental safety groups over a leak from a Shell platform in the North Sea. Shell has confirmed that it has managed to plug the leak from its Gannet Alpha platform which is located just 112 miles off Aberdeen, Scotland.  The leak resulted in more than 200 ton...

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A local barge company has been cited for 40 safety violations following an April flash fire that left two employees dead at its Freeport facility. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration cited Texas Barge & Boat Inc. with one willful and 39 serious violations, as well as penalties of about $220,000, after inspectors investigated the i...

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The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is conducting an investigation into the BP explosion and oil spill last year. The investigation is being conducted at the request of Congress. The investigation is still on, but according to the New York Times, the board has found that lax federal offshore safety regulatory standards were re...

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The Jones Act allows a maritime worker to file a claim against a vessel owner, if he has been injured by unsafe work conditions on a vessel. These claims are called unseaworthiness claims, and are filed only against the vessel owner, not the employer. However, in some cases, the vessel owner may be the employer of the worker, in which case, he m...

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Booster seats substantially reduce children's risk of injuries in a car accident. However, those risks may not be affected at all if the seat does not come with a proper safety belt fit. According to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, close to 50% of children's car booster seats available in the market do not come with a good...

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Researchers in Hawaii have confirmed that a massive floating island of tsunami debris from Japan is likely to hit the Hawaiian coast by the year 2013. Researchers are currently conducting more studies to more accurately predict exactly when the debris is likely to hit shore. In September, a Russian ship sailing in the Pacific Ocean found the ts...

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An investigation by the NSW Office of Transport Safety has found several breaches of safety regulations at Australia's Capt. Cook's Cruises. These breaches include failure to record passenger injuries properly, and poor maintenance of vessels. Inspectors with the NSW Office of Transport Safety began investigating the Sydney-based fleet of 14 cr...

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A bill introduced in the US House of Representatives would require rescue boats to be stationed within three nautical miles of offshore oil and gas drilling rigs.  The measure has been sponsored by Louisiana Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia. According to him, the proposal aims to find a common sense approach to the safety problems facing the offs...

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The Christmas holiday cruise season will soon get underway, and thousands of vacationers across the country will set off on a dream vacation on the sea. It is the right time for passengers to understand that there are dangers on a cruise vacation that they may not always be aware of.  MSNBC has a timely report on an increasing number of inciden...

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For years, it has been one of the biggest mysteries in the cruise industry. 26-year-old George Smith disappeared from his vacation on a Royal Caribbean cruise liner back in 2005. His body was never found, and speculation about his disappearance has continued since. Now, new details have emerged about his disappearance.  According to the New Yor...

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Back in 2004, a paint inspector found black residue inside the drinking water tanks on two cruise ships operated by Norwegian Cruise Line, the Norwegian Dawn and Norwegian Star. He believed that the residue was the result of the paint on the potable water tank leaching a chemical called acrylonitrile into the water. This chemical is believed to ...

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The International Maritime Organization has released data to mark 12 months of battling piracy. According to the statistics, the number of vessels held captive by Somali pirate gangs has dropped from 33 ships in February to 13 at the beginning of December. Further, the number of seamen being held captive by Somali pirates has dropped from 733 in...

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Federal workplace safety regulators have cited a Mississippi shipyard for 50 safety violations, including failure to prevent slip and fall hazards, and improper storage of inflammable materials. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Huntington Ingalls Industries with a total of 50 safety violations and proposed penalties t...

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According to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the numbers of food poisoning outbreaks on cruise ships were at their lowest in years in 2010.  The agency reported that in 2010, it recorded just 11 outbreaks of food poisoning on cruise vessels, compared to 14 outbreaks the previous year. In 2006, the cruise ship ind...

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Russian transportation city officials are blaming errors made by the captain as the reason for the sinking of an Indonesia-flagged vessel in the Sea of Okhotsk. Russia's Far East transport department says that one of the main reasons for the capsizing of the Ginga was the violations of safety regulations by the captain of the vessel. The Ginga ...

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A scientific panel is recommending that U.S. offshore drilling companies take a more systematic approach to offshore safety in order to prevent a disaster like the BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico last year.  The recommendations were made by the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. In a new report, the two ag...

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Japanese researchers have successfully used stem cells derived from tooth pulp to treat damaged spinal cord cells. The research has been conducted on rats, and clinical trials on humans are still a long way off, but the results have been encouraging enough for researchers to be optimistic about the results in humans, too. The stem cells were e...

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An explosion at a fuel storage and intermodal terminal near the Port of Galveston about 7 p.m. Thursday was heard across the island and into parts of the Galveston County mainland. Firefighters responded to the 3-alarm fire that shut down the road to Pelican Island and left Texas A&M University at Galveston students on lockdown. There were abou...

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BP’s safety record is not exactly a secret to the maritime law lawyers at our firm. However, the company’s less-than-stellar record will not be admitted into court during the Deepwater Horizon trial.  The trial will apportion blame for the oil explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, which killed 11 workers. But, the court has disallowed ...

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Offshore oil industry workers in Canada now have access to greater and more improved helicopter crash survival training. The Marine Institute has announced newly improved facilities for workers in the country's offshore industry. The Offshore Safety and Survival Center located in Foxtrap, Canada has invested in new survival equipment that is me...

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If lobbying efforts by the trucking industry and shipping groups are successful, highways in several states, including Texas, could see heavier tractor-trailers plying their roads. A piece of legislation that is being supported heavily by the trucking industry would increase the weight limits on commercial trucks, making for bulkier and heavier ...

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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited a shipbuilder for safety violations that contributed to the death of one worker last August. The company Jeffboat LLC is one of the country's largest inland ship builders. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration launched inspections of the company's barge building facilities,...

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