MILWAUKEE --
Federal safety officials have fined We Energies nearly $150,000 for violations stemming from a power plant explosion in February that injured eight workers.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Thursday also fined the workers' contracting firm about $150,000.
The blast occurred in a coal-dust silo at the utility's suburban Milwaukee power plant. It took firefighters several hours to put out the fire.
OSHA said We Energies failed to provide contractors adequate safety information.
The safety agency also said Waukesha-based contractor ThyssenKrupp Safway Inc. failed to implement proper safety procedures.
We Energies released this statement to 12 News Thursday afternoon:
"We're obviously very interested in determining the root cause of the accident and what can be done to prevent an incident of this nature from ever happening again. We've been conducting our own internal review, and we will certainly take a hard look at the information OSHA has provided to us. We look forward to sitting down with OSHA representatives over the next few days to discuss their findings," We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said.
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