Silo Tunnel Modifications
•Three 100-foot tall silos stored granulated sugar until it was ready to move to the 4-story packaging or refining buildings
adjacent to the storehouses.
•Sugar left the storage silos via chutes positioned at each silo’s base. The chutes channeled the sugar onto a conveyor
belt that ran through a tunnel beneath the silos (tunnel dimensions were 10 feet wide x 130 feet long).
•Every so often, clumps of sugar would clog the chutes, causing sugar to spill onto the floor and sugar dust to disperse
into the tunnel.
•Early in 2007, Imperial Sugar decided to enclose the conveyor belt with steel panels to eliminate the possibility of
contaminating the sugar with falling debris or foreign objects.
•The enclosure did not have an associated ventilation or dust collection system.
•Sugar dust that once dispersed into the tunnel was now trapped in a space one tenth the tunnel’s size