US regulator proposes $794,456 penalty over hydrogen sulfide deaths at a Maine pulp mill

The United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced on 30 July 2026 that it had cited Woodland Pulp LLC, operator of a hardwood pulp mill at Baileyville in eastern Maine, with four wilful and eight serious violations carrying proposed penalties of $794,456. The citations follow an uncontrolled release of hydrogen sulfide on 27 January 2026 that killed two workers, and a separate chemical fire on 7 March 2026 in which the agency says the company released 4,400 gallons of 50 per cent hydrogen peroxide that mixed with accumulated wood pulp on the ground.

The wilful citations allege that workers were exposed to deadly concentrations of hydrogen sulfide without alarms or breathing apparatus, and that pulp overflow was allowed to accumulate. The serious citations allege inadequate training on hydrogen peroxide hazards, a failure to conduct medical evaluations and respirator fit testing, unlabelled chlorine and acid lines, and neglected hydrogen sulfide exposure controls.

A separate federal body, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, opened its own investigation on 9 February 2026 and published a factual update on 14 July 2026. According to that update, the mill shut most of its operations on 26 January 2026 because of rising natural gas costs. During the shutdown, high pH process fluids carrying sulfur compounds entered the acid sewer line. A pH probe triggered automatic sulfuric acid injection at about 4.00am on 27 January, the chemistry that liberates hydrogen sulfide. At 11.40am the scrubber fan shut down, and gas travelled through connected piping into the Kraft Mill building, where two employees collapsed on the second floor near several release points. The board says the gas had dissipated by about 3.00pm, but the two workers were not found until after 6.15pm.

The board's stated findings are about what was missing rather than what failed mechanically. It says no personal hydrogen sulfide monitors were issued to employees, no stationary detectors were installed in the Bleach Plant area, no system tracked where personnel were during shutdown work, and building ventilation was inadequate. Board chairperson Steve Owens said the two young employees who died were not provided with personal hydrogen sulfide monitors and that there were no hydrogen sulfide detectors installed in the building. The delay of roughly seven hours between the collapse and the discovery is the most consequential detail in the timeline, and it is the direct consequence of the missing personnel tracking the board identifies.

The dead were Kasie Malcolm, 20, a University of Maine chemical engineering student working at the mill as an intern, who died on 28 January 2026, and Allen Hornberger, 26, who was hospitalised and died of his injuries. The Chemical Safety Board records his death as 16 February 2026; Maine Public reported it on 18 February 2026. Maine Public reported on 29 January that the mill had been shut pending investigation and that a company spokesperson, Steve Beal, confirmed the intern's status but did not describe a cause. The company has said it is cooperating fully with investigators.

OSHA's release places the January and March events against a compliance history. The agency says the mill has been inspected 13 times since 2017, producing 13 serious and one other than serious citation, and it points to a 2017 incident in the same area in which 14 employees were hospitalised after chemical exposure. Maine Public described the record as more than a dozen citations over the past decade. The regulator's decision to characterise four of the new violations as wilful, the highest category short of a criminal referral, rests on that history of knowledge rather than on any single act.

Nothing here is yet settled. OSHA citations are proposed, not final: the company has 15 business days from receipt to pay, seek an informal conference, or contest the findings before an independent review commission, and contested penalties are frequently reduced. The Chemical Safety Board has not released a final report, and its July document is expressly an update rather than a conclusion.

What remains unknown is why the scrubber fan stopped at 11.40am and whether that stoppage was itself detected, whether anyone was alerted to a gas alarm anywhere in the plant, and what the mill's shutdown procedure required of supervisors regarding accounting for staff. Also unresolved is whether the March fire and the January release share a common cause in how the mill managed chemical inventories during an economically forced shutdown, and whether the mill, which stood down about 150 workers in a temporary shutdown announced in November 2025, will contest the penalty at all.