Union Leaders Say Personal Monitors Could Have Prevented Woodland Pulp Tragedy

A union leader at Woodland Pulp in Baileyville says he lobbied four different superintendents for personal monitors that could have detected the deadly hydrogen sulfide leak that killed 20-year-old intern Kasie Malcolm and 26-year-old engineer Allen Hornberger on January 27, according to an August 9 investigation in the Maine Sunday Telegram. USW Local 27 President Shawn Howland says his requests for personal monitors, known as “crickets,” were denied by various corporate owners.

“Since Day One that I’ve been down here, they’ve been something that we should have had,” Howland told the Telegram. “To be honest, we’ve been lucky. And our luck ran out.”

Howland was among eleven employees who were working in the mill’s bleach plant when they were exposed to the deadly gases that had built up in a sewage line. He said that he didn’t even know Malcolm and Hornberger were working on the second floor of the building when they evacuated. He said the two men were on the floor for four hours after being exposed to a big plume of hydrogen sulfide gas until one of their roommates called the mill looking for them. Federal investigators faulted the company for not having a system in place that would have accounted for each employee at the facility.

At the time of the accident, Howland and the other workers were preparing the plant for a temporary shutdown. He told the Sunday Telegram that he would have told Malcolm and Hornberger not to come inside the bleach plant that day had he known they were there. He believes that the personal gas monitors, which only cost about $100 each, would have saved the young men's lives.

“I wouldn’t wish this on anybody,” he said. He said he is also haunted by the fact that instead of two people, “this easily could’ve been 12.”

OSHA documented 31 worksite deaths from hydrogen sulfide between 2020-2024. Howland told the Sunday Telegram that he is working with mill management to install several new safety systems to prevent a similar tragedy from happening. However, while OSHA is proposing $800,000 in fines against Woodland Pulp for the incident, the federal agency still doesn’t require personal gas monitors. USW staff rep Mike Higgins told the Sunday Telegram he’s planning to push for state legislation to require the use of the personal monitors in paper mills next year.

“If you’re an employer that uses chemicals that could produce an immediate danger to life and health it should be mandatory that you provide your employees that work around that with personal monitoring,” Higgins said, adding, “Maybe it’ll start the ball rolling across the country.”