ORONO – State officials have cited the University of Maine for nine violations of workplace safety regulations and fined the institution $18,000 in connection with an investigation into the death this week of an employee at the university’s aquaculture site in Franklin.

UM spokesperson Joe Carr said Friday afternoon that the university has received indications the list of violations prepared by the state’s Bureau of Labor Standards will be amended, but that the university will not receive official notice of the amendment until Monday.

Carr declined to say whether the resulting fines are expected to be lesser or greater with the amendments. Michael Frett, director of the state’s Bureau of Labor Standards, declined Friday to make any comments specific to the bureau’s investigation of the Franklin facility.

University officials received a copy Friday morning of the bureau’s report of workplace safety violations found at the Franklin site. Of the nine citations listed in the report, one was deemed to be willful and carried a fine of $10,000.

The state investigated the university’s Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research in Franklin after one of the employees there died Monday when he and a teen-age boy attempted to clean a 16-foot-tall tank at the site. Sludge had built up in the tank, which replenishes oxygen in water used for cultivating halibut, and hydrogen sulfide was released when George Schaefer, 16, of Sullivan sprayed the sludge with a water hose.

The boy collapsed in the tank and William O’Coin, 43, of Ellsworth went in to help him. O’Coin, systems manager at the facility, helped Schaefer get out of the tank but was overcome by the gas fumes and died from asphyxiation.

O’Coin’s funeral is scheduled to take place today in Ellsworth. Schaefer was injured in the incident and on Friday afternoon was listed in serious condition in the intensive care unit of Children’s Hospital in Boston.

Among the violations cited in the report was the university’s failure to implement its written confined-space entry program at the Franklin facility. According to the report, UM had developed a written policy on its employees entering confined work spaces, and committed a willful violation in not making sure the policy was followed at the aquaculture center. This violation alone resulted in a $10,000 fine.

Frett said Friday that a willful violation is not necessarily something committed or put into place intentionally.

“That doesn’t mean you did it on purpose,” Frett said. “It means you knew about it and didn’t do anything about it.”

In assessing fines for violations, the department is not allowed to consider the severity of any physical injuries that may occur because of those violations, Frett said.

“The resulting injury is not a factor,” Frett said. But the severity of a resulting injury may affect the level of scrutiny with which state investigators examine the violating conditions, he said.

“You want to really make certain this can be prevented from happening again,” Frett said. The maximum fine the bureau can impose for any single nonwillful violation is $1,000, he said.

Also among the violations cited in the report were the lack of testing of air inside the tank before entry was made, the lack of training provided to employees who entered the tank, and the lack of an evacuation procedure from the tank in case something went wrong. In addition, no evaluation was done to determine if a permit was needed to enter the tank, the university did not inform employees of spaces at the facility that require a permit for entry, and no entry permit was obtained before Schaefer climbed into the tank, the report said.

Each of the lesser or nonwillful violations carries a fine of $1,000. The deadline listed in the report for correcting the violations is Aug. 15.

The university has 15 days to appeal the fines if it chooses, but according to Carr, it does not intend to do so.

Carr said the bureau’s findings about the violations in Franklin are consistent with the university’s own investigation of the situation.

“We are moving ahead with remediation of these issues,” Carr said. “We’re committed to doing everything in our power to ensure safety in our workplaces and to prevent accidents like the one that happened on Monday.”

He said the university has not been notified of any possible legal claims connected with the fatal accident.

The fines made public Friday are the latest of several workplace safety-related fines the university has paid during the past 15 years. In 1999, it was fined $5,000 by the Department of Labor for asbestos-related violations during a renovation of laboratories in Boardman Hall. In 1998, UM paid $14,000 in penalties involving chemical storage, eyewash stations and personal protective equipment. Another state inspection that year found more than 450 safety code violations at the university, 42 of which were serious enough to result in fines in excess of $10,000.

In 1993, the university was fined $20,000 by the Department of Environmental Protection for improperly storing and disposing of hazardous materials. At that time, the school was cited for storing incompatible materials together and not having an up-to-date contingency plan. In 1986, UM was fined $17,000 for similar problems.