Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

OSHA cites contractor following fatal trench collapse

Reprints
trench

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed $110,590 in penalties to a company conducting underground utility work after an investigation found that it exposed workers to cave-in hazards, leading to one worker’s death in January.

Huntsville, Alabama-based Weaver Environmental Services Inc. is accused of failing to conduct proper safety inspections of open trenches/excavations and failing to use a shielding system that was available and onsite, resulting in one willful violation for exposing workers to cave-in hazards, and two serious violations for related offenses.

The citations follow a Jan. 15 incident in which an employee entered a deep trench to work on underground utility pipes. Shortly after he entered the trench, it collapsed around him, suffocating the employee beneath thousands of pounds of soil, according to OSHA.

The company could not immediately be reached for comment.

 

 

 

 

Read Next

  • Companies fined for fatal trench collapse at wind farm

    Three companies have been fined more than a half-million dollars in connection with a January trench collapse at a wind farm site near Rainier, Washington, that killed one worker and seriously injured another, the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries announced Thursday.