Ag chemical firm with ‘alarming’ past violations sued after WA father of 12 dies of fumes

Dmitriy Voloshin was riding his bike to his parent’s house on a June evening to greet his father as he returned from his latest truck haul from Canada, when he received an ominous message from one of his 11 siblings.

“Pray for Dad,” it said.

His father had been discovered unresponsive in a tanker trailer at Two Rivers Terminal, a fertilizer and chemical formulator, distributor and importer on Glade North Road near Pasco.

His mother had been called by one of her other sons who worked at the terminal.

The Pasco family gathered at the terminal, only to see a coroner arrive.

After what felt like an eternity, the body of Viktor Voloshin, 56, was pulled from a tanker trailer where he had been overcome with fumes from emulsified sulfur.

Two Rivers Terminal had once again not followed requirements for confined space entries, the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries determined.

But this time a worker died.

Viktor Voloshin’s family has filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court against Two Rivers Terminal and its parent company Land View Inc.

“If this ever happens to another family and I don’t speak up now, I don’t bring awareness to other people, ... that will be my fault,” Dmitriy Voloshin told the Tri-City Herald.

Death at Two Rivers Terminal

On June 7, 2024, Viktor Voloshin arrived about 3:30 p.m. with his semi-truck and a trailer tank owned by Two Rivers Terminal.

The trailer had been emptied of its load of emulsified sulfur, but still contained residue of the chemical when Viktor Voloshin was told to pull into a wash station so it could be cleaned out.

He had not been trained on how to clean out a tanker that carried emulsified sulfur, nor given any written instructions on how to do it, according to the lawsuit.

He climbed on top of the tank and tried rinsing it with a hose before asking a Two Rivers Terminal employee for a ladder, according to the suit.

He was given a ladder that was used specifically for climbing into confined spaces like trailer tanks, said the lawsuit.

He used the ladder to climb into the tank through a small hatch at 4:10 p.m.

Some 55 minutes later an employee checked on him and found him lying face up in the bottom of the tanker.

Emergency responders were called, but Viktor Voloshin was not pulled from the tank for nearly three hours after he was seen lying at its bottom, according to the lawsuit.

He had died in the tank.

Pasco immigrant always found a way

Viktor Voloshin and his wife left Ukraine in 1998 and settled in Pasco with their first five children.

“My dad wanted better for his kids, for his family,” said Dmitriy Voloshin. “He wanted a better job. He wanted us to get a good education.”

The family scraped by with Viktor Voloshin as the sole provider. Clothes were second-hand and sometimes dinner came from a food bank.

“My parents always found a way to make it work for the kids. We always got to school,” said Dmitriy Voloshin, who earned an engineering degree from Washington State University.

Viktor Voloshin was the hardest working man he knew, Dmitriy Voloshin said.

His dad had a knack for mechanics and owned his semi, but drove exclusively for Two Rivers Terminal. He would often be gone for a week at a time, driving rough roads in Canada.

But it was his character that Dmitriy Voloshin said made his father a superhero to him.

Just a month before his death Dmitriy Voloshin was looking at the security cameras at his parent’s home and watched his 17-year-old brother walk out to his car. A tire was flat.

Two minutes later his father came without hesitation, took a tire from his own car to replace the bad tire on his son’s.

Dmitriy Voloshin remembered his mother saying recently that no matter what the problem was, his father would find a solution.

“He was always there to lend a hand,” Dmitriy Voloshin said. “He was always there to make our lives better.”

When his father walked into the room, Dmitriy Voloshin said he would catch himself straightening his back a little.

“Everyday we think about him,” he said. “Everyday we can’t believe what happened.”

The two youngest Voloshin children are in middle school and high school, but the older children have good jobs, homes and families, thanks to the solid foundation for life that their parents gave them, their brother said.

There are now 15 Voloshin grandchildren, two of them born too recently for Viktor Voloshin to meet.

Two Rivers Terminal fines

The Washington Department of Labor and Industries fined the Two Rivers Terminal company — a division of Land View Inc. based in Minidoka, Idaho — about $394,000 in December for the incident in which Viktor Voloshin died.

The company has appealed, according to L&I.

L&I categorized violations in the incident as serious, with some violations also willful and some also repeat violations that had been documented in 2022.

Its findings were largely echoed in the Voloshin estate’s lawsuit.

The lawsuit says that Two Rivers Terminal should have trained Viktor Voloshin on the danger of transporting and unloading emulsified sulfur and should have provided him with breathing safety equipment.

It failed to ensure that confined space entry permits were obtained to document safe entry and work in the semi-trailer tanks, it said.

The company should have had a trained attendant for Viktor Voloshin when he went into the tanker truck to monitor his safety and health, the lawsuit said.

Two Rivers Terminal was fined nearly $193,000 in 2022 after it violated rules, including for confined space entry at its Moses Lake plant.

“It is fortunate no one has been seriously injured or killed,” said Craig Blackwood, Washington state Department of Labor and Industries official, then.

Two Rivers Terminal was cooperating with L&I then, but “the number and severity of violations is still alarming,” Blackwood said.

Family says death preventable

Viktor Voloshin’s death was preventable, his son said.

“I wish they had made changes before this happened to my dad,” said Dmitriy Voloshin. “I believe he would still be alive.”

The lawsuit asks for damages in an amount to be proven at trial and attorney fees.

Two Rivers Terminal did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations.

A GoFundMe fundraiser for the Voloshin family has raised about $36,500.

This story was originally published February 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.