OSHA investigations into two Illinois contractors have resulted in fines.
Rooter Solutions was fined $35,940 following the death of a 27-year-old employee in December 2022 at a Buffalo Grove, Illinois, job site.
The worker was 7 feet below the surface fixing a residential water line damaged during excavation when the trench’ss walls collapsed, crushing him fatally. Another employee in the trench with him at the time escaped the trench unharmed.
OSHA inspectors found that Rooter Solutions had failed to install cave-in protection that would have protected workers in the trench and did not ensure the use of required head protection.
Read also: Know trench safety laws and just do it
OSHA cited Rooter Solutions for one willful violation and one serious violation with proposed penalties of $35,940.
Groundworks Contracting, Breese, Illinois, was fined $77,147 and cited for one willful violation, four serious violations, and one other-than-serious violation of federal trenching and excavation standards.
The contractor ignored a city engineer’s repeated verbal and written instructions to use trench cave-in protection, according to OSHA. Acting on a City of Waterloo referral, OSHA inspectors found five employees of Groundworks Contracting in trenches as deep as 18 feet on five occasions during its investigation from Nov. 30, 2022, to Jan. 20, 2023, at the Silvercreek Crossing residential housing development.
Inspectors determined the employer put workers at risk by failing to provide required cave-in protection and head protection and by not training employees to recognize cave-in hazards. In addition, OSHA found Groundworks had no competent person on site to inspect trenches before workers entered and, on one occasion, failed to protect a laborer as they were hoisted in an excavator's bucket to work over a 15-foot-deep trench.
Read also: What is a protective system for trenches?
“With help from a concerned City of Waterloo engineer, our inspectors were able to hold Groundworks Contracting Inc. accountable for its failure to protect employees from the threat of trench collapse, one of the construction industry's most lethal hazards,” said Aaron Priddy, OSHA area director in Fairview Heights, Illinois. “Despite warnings from local authorities, this contractor’s callous lack of concern for their employees’ safety and well-being is hard to imagine.”
Source: OSHA
