USW & Other Union Members Reeling After Baileyville Tragedy
Workers at the Woodland Pulp mill in Baileyville are still reeling after a hydrogen sulfide leak at the company’s Bleach Mill Plant killed a University of Maine student and very seriously injured two others on January 27. Kasie Malcolm, a chemical engineering student participating in a co-op program through UMaine, died of his injuries at a hospital that evening.
“Our hearts are broken beyond belief by the loss of our beloved Kasie,” his mother, Yumiko Malcolm, and brother Alex Malcolm said in a written statement to the Portland Press Herald. “Ever since he was a little boy, he lived his life full of curiosity, kindness, and adventure.”
The name of an engineer who was hospitalized due to the incident has not been released. An IBEW electrician was also hospitalized briefly and released.
Kasie Malcolm grew up in Japan, where his mother and brother still live. His late father was from Sanford and served in the Navy before settling in Yokosuka, Japan near a U.S. naval base. Kasie Malcolm attended St. Thomas School in Sanford and graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Dover, New Hampshire in 2023. He was a state champion swimmer whom his alma mater described as “a powerful thinker who worked every day to not only grow as a student, but even more so as a person.”
Hydrogen sulfide is a byproduct of the paper making process that creates a rotten egg-like smell in low concentrations. It poses fatal health risks and causes rapid unconsciousness at high concentrations. Eight workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 27 and another IBEW electrician were exposed to the gas, but none of them were hospitalized, according to USW. All 10 of the union workers have been cleared to return to work by medical staff. USW labor rep Mike Higgins said his members are still shaken from the incident.
"We are extremely lucky that a few of our members who encountered this gas got out in time," said Higgins. "Our members, especially in the bleach plant, are obviously very concerned. They have always felt a sense that they're safe at work. With this happening, it makes them question if they're actually safe. They want to make this place better, especially with the infrastructure of the bleach plant and the response to emergencies there."
The union said federal OSHA officials and a Maine Department of Environmental Protection response team are doing an investigation into the incident. No details on the cause of the leak or what is being done to prevent another incident have been released due to the pending investigation.
“When we figure out what the root cause is, we’ll do our best to put measures in place so this doesn’t happen again,” Higgins told the Bangor Daily News.
According to the BDN, Woodland Pulp has received six OSHA citations since 2022, incurring thousands of dollars in penalties for past safety violations. Their most recent citation, the paper reported, was in Aug. 2024 for a disorderly workspace and overdue equipment evaluations. In Sept. 2022, OSHA cited the plant $8,628.90 for containing “explosive concentrations of dust” in its stairways, walls, ceilings and working surfaces, according to the citation.