A federal grand jury on Thursday issued a 22-count indictment against Steve Braithwaite, president and owner of Nebraska Railcar Cleaning Services LLC, related to worker safety incidents that led to a fatal explosion and the deaths of two workers at its Omaha facility in 2015. 

Braithwaite in December 2017 purchased a 12-acre tract of land from the City of Des Moines and was selected as the planned operator of a railcar transloading facility planned east of downtown Des Moines. 

City and Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization officials told the Business Record in late July that construction of the planned facility would begin early this month. Rita Conner, the city’s economic development director, and Todd Ashby, MPO director, said at that time that the city and MPO were satisfied that Braithwaite had adequately addressed concerns raised by a competing bidder for the project who had alerted officials to Braithwaite’s OSHA violations. 

“We are monitoring the situation,” Ashby said in an emailed response to the Business Record’s request for comment. Conner could not be immediately reached for comment.

MPO spokesman Gunnar Olson said the delay in the start of construction of the facility, which was expected to begin earlier this month, is not due to the Justice Department investigation but rather has been on hold due to selection of a construction contractor. The MPO did not provide an updated timeline for the start of construction.  

The proposed transload facility, to be built on the site of a former auto salvage yard just north of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway between East 14th and 15th streets, was supposed to begin operation in the fall of 2015, following an extensive feasibility study conducted by the MPO.

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