The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently cited Carter Construction Co. Inc., of Loveland, OH, with four safety violations, including two willful ones. Carter is charged with exposing workers to excavation hazards while installing an underground storm sewer pipe in a 20-foot-deep trench in Montgomery, OH. OSHA’s June 2012 inspection was conducted under the agency’s National Emphasis Program on Trenching and Excavation. Proposed penalties total $68,500.
The willful violations include failure to provide sidewall protection in a trench and failure to remove employees from an excavation where hazards were identified. A willful violation is one committed with intentional knowing or voluntary disregard for the law’s requirements, or with plain indifference to worker safety and health.
Two serious violations include failure to keep equipment and material at least 2 feet back from the excavation’s edge, and failure to provide a means of entry into and exit from an open excavation. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.
OSHA standards mandate that all excavations 5 feet or deeper be protected against collapse. Detailed information on trenching and excavation hazards is available at www.osha.gov/SLTC
/trenchingexcavation/index.html.
Carter Construction has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
Toolbox talks are a valuable safety training method for every heavy-construction contractor. Recently a series of 106 Toolbox Talks has been posted on the Internet under the website www.elcosh.org-and the talks are free and downloadable. A total of 48 Toolbox Talks are available in Spanish. The site is supported by funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. (ELCOSH stands for Electronic Library of Construction Safety and Health.) Following are two samples of toolbox talks found at the site.
Toolbox Talk One
How should we operate heavy equipment around excavations?
Ask the following questions and give time for answers.
- What are the hazards? Trench collapse, body parts caught in or between equipment and surface, overhead materials dropping on workers in trenches, equipment rollover.
- What are the results? Broken or crushed limbs and bones, entrapment, head injury, internal damage, and death.
- What should we look for? Equipment operating near trenches, equipment working in tight areas, equipment backing up without spotters, fractures in soil caused by equipment near trenches, barricades and spoil piles not appropriately established.
Relate this incident or, better, one you know.
Actual Incident: In May 2003, a Hispanic male pipe layer, aged 23 years, died after being struck by the teeth of an excavator bucket while in a trench. The pipe layer was in the trench connecting pipe sections and working around the moving excavator bucket. A “spotter” had been designated to ensure that workers remained out of the way of the moving excavator-but the spotter was assigned to another task. The operator was reversing the excavator to make a new soil cut when the pipe layer was struck by the bucket causing fatal injuries.
Ask the following question and ensure every item is covered: How do we prevent these results?
Spotters should be used for backing up equipment and guiding operations that pose extra risk. If spotters can’t be seen, the operation should stop. A competent person must evaluate excavations daily and after rains. Warning systems such as backup alarms, warning vests and barricades must be checked and used. Seat belts must be worn whenever the equipment is moving.
Spoil piles must be maintained at least 2 feet from the edge of the excavation. Rollovers should be ridden out as long as there is ROPS in place. Jumping increases the risk.
Ask the following questions about this site and ensure every item is covered. Have the spoil piles been maintained well? At least 2 feet back. Have workers in the trench stayed far enough back from the equipment? Have we had any close calls during the backing of equipment? What do we have in place to warn operators when they are getting close to the trench edge? Barricades, logs, etc.?
Toolbox Talk Two
How can you prevent trench cave-ins?
Ask the following questions and give time for answers.
- What are the hazards? Bodily or equipment entrapment in soil.
- What are the results? Broken or crushed limbs and bones, entrapment, suffocation, head injury, internal damage, and death.
- What should we look for? Stable rock and soil type (A, B, C), depth of excavation, cave-ins, water in trench, weather conditions (rain, frost), water table, protective systems, competent person, operation of heavy equipment near excavation, barricades, and falling loads.
Relate this incident or one you know.
Actual Incident: A general contractor was putting in a pipe at his own home. It was starting to get dark and he wanted to get done so he did not do any shoring. While on his hands and knees in the bottom of the 12-foot-deep trench, gluing the pipe ends, the trench caved in. The impact of the falling soil knocked him into a fetal position with the open end of the pipe near his face. He was buried under six feet of dirt for almost an hour before being rescued. He survived, but after being revived, saw the body bag they had out ready for him. After that, he said, “I became very interested in trench safety.”
Ask the following question and ensure every item is covered: How do we prevent these results?
A competent person must evaluate excavations daily. Excavation should be re-evaluated after events such as rain.
Use safety equipment such as shoring or sloping for excavations greater than 5 feet or for any depth a competent person deems needed.
Examine protective systems in accordance with manufacturer’s recommendations and remove damaged systems from service.
Understand soil types: A-most stable (clay, hardpan), B-next most stable (silt, loam, unstable dry-rock), C-least stable (gravel, loamy sand).
Ask the following questions about this site and ensure every item is covered.
Let’s talk about this site now. How can you prevent cave-ins? Shoring, shielding and sloping. At what depth is cave-in protection required? Five feet. Name three soil types and give an example of each. What soil type is on this site? Name some conditions that can increase cave-ins. Rain, heavy equipment, etc.
Does your company have a competent person for excavation and trenching on site? Record questions that you want to ask about this site.
