OSHA: Trench contractor endangered workers in Avon Lake, Columbus, Sandusky

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited an Ohio contractor with eight violations of federal trenching and excavation standards and is proposing more than $250,000 in fines as a result. Underground Utilities Inc., an excavation contractor based in Monroeville, has been cited six times since 2017 for ignoring federal trench-safety rules, according to OSHA. OSHA's investigations in Avon Lake, Columbus and Sandusky in July 2022 prompted the agency to issue citations to Underground Utilities for one willful violation, two repeat and five serious violations of federal trenching and excavation standards. The agency also cited the company with failing to report a fatality within eight hours, as the law requires. The company faces proposed penalties of $251,517. A message seeking comment was left for Underground Utilities Inc. on Wednesday. Underground Utilities currently is installing a water main on Vine Avenue between E. 31st and E. 33rd streets in Lorain, according to the city's Engineering Department. OSHA said the company allowed employees to work with damaged safety equipment on July 26, 2022, the day a 33-year-old worker in Columbus suffered fatal injuries. Before the death, OSHA investigators allegedly saw Underground Utilities exposing its crews to trenching hazards at a Sandusky work site and at another in Avon Lake five days earlier, on July 21, 2022. The crews were replacing municipal sewer and water lines at the time, OSHA said. The company has 15 business days from receipt of the citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA's area director or contest the findings before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. The worker who was killed in the incident in Columbus was pinned between the "spreader" bars of a trench box and the wall of a 7-foot-deep excavation. OSHA said its investigators found a sling hook came loose while the box was suspended in the trench. "A worker's life was cut short because this employer used faulty equipment," OSHA Area Director Larry Johnson in Columbus said. "These three investigations at different sites in the same week show Underground Utilities' lack of concern for employee well-being by failing to follow federal safety regulations and industry-recognized best practices." At all three work sites, OSHA found the company failed to ensure required cave-in protection was in place and properly used. Inspectors also discovered the employer neglected to keep a spoils pile away from the edge of the trench, used unsafe rigging to hoist trench boxes and damaged cave-in protection. Trench collapses are among the construction industry's most lethal hazards. The death in Columbus was one of 39 reported to OSHA in 2022. "Contractors who continually ignore safety requirements are gambling with their workers' lives as the odds are tragedy will eventually strike," OSHA Area Director Todd Jensen in Toledo said. "Workers must be told before entering a trench that it must have adequate cave-in protection, a safe way to get in and out and no potential hazards that can collapse on them." Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.