POTLATCH CORP. BURN ACCIDENT RESULTS IN HEFTY FINE OSHA ORDERS COMPANY TO PAY $60,000 FOR APRIL 28 INCIDENT

Potlatch Corp. has been fined $60,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in connection with an April 28 burn accident involving a pulp and paperboard division employee.

Clifford Decicio, 35, suffered second-degree burns over 26 percent of his upper body when a water valve on the hydropulper of the No. 2 paperboard machine inadvertently started 140-degree water to flow into the sump he was cleaning.

Decicio was flown that day to the Harborview Medical Center Burn Clinic in Seattle.

Potlatch spokesman Michael D. Sullivan said Tuesday that Decicio did return to work for a short while after initial recovery from the accident, ''but he found the work incompatible with his condition.''

Sullivan said Decicio has moved to the Seattle area, and continues to receive workers compensation payments from the company.

OSHA investigators issued four ''serious violation'' citations to the company in mid-August. Two of the fines were for $5,000, but the other two were $25,000 each because they were repeat violations, according to Jerry Hockett, supervisor at the OSHA office in Boise.

Sullivan said the company conducted its own investigation of the incident right after it happened, and officials have corrected or are in the process of correcting the policies and procedures involved in the violations.

The citations, based on an OSHA investigation after the accident, were as follows:

*Potlatch was fined $5,000 because personal protective equipment was not provided to protect employees from thermal burns where there was exposure to pulp stock material at approximately 130 to 150 degrees Farenheit.

*Potlatch was fined $5,000 because no energy controlling devices were applied to energy sources, such as water, steam, pneumatic, and mechanical, while Decicio entered the sump pit during the No. 2 hydropulper draining.

*Potlatch was fined $25,000 because no procedures had been developed or implemented at the time of the accident for draining the hydropulper in order to perform maintenance and inspection activities.

*Potlatch was fined $25,000 because no training or information was provided to employees on or before the time of the accident where changes had been made in the control of the hydropulper's water sources.

The company received five times the normal fine for the last two citations because Potlatch was fined under the same two sections of code in April 1991, Hockett said.

Those citations were issued in connection with a chlorine gas leak at the company's bleach plant Feb. 14, 1991.

Potlatch employees were removing a probe from the stock line that moves pulp through the bleach plant when a ''small bubble'' of chlorine gas in the line escaped.

Twelve contract workers who were exposed to the chlorine gas were sent to St. Joseph Regional Medical Center. They worked for J.H. Kelly and Kamtech, two out-of-town construction companies.

One worker involved in the accident, Timothy Halvorson of Orofino, later filed a suit against Potlatch. He alleged ''gross, wanton and willful'' negligence in allowing the gas to escape and in failing to properly warn workers of its dangers.