ConDig (05-Jun-23).  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has fined an Illinois contractor for flouting safety warnings about deadly trench hazards.

The agency said that Groundworks Contracting Inc was fined $77,000 after investigators found workers exposed on five occasions to potentially deadly trench cave-ins on the Silvercreek Crossing residential housing development.

OHSA 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.

Trench collapses are among the construction industry’s most deadly hazards. In 2022, 39 workers suffered fatal injuries in trenching and excavation work.

“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 OSHA area director Aaron Priddy. 

“Despite warnings from local authorities, this contractor’s callous lack of concern for their employees’ safety and well-being is hard to imagine.”

OSHA has a national emphasis program on trenching and excavations. Trenching standards require protective systems on trenches deeper than 5 feet, and soil and other materials kept at least 2 feet from the edge of a trench.

In March, OSHA fined a Wisconsin-based roofing company and a general contractor for exposing workers to potentially deadly falls at an Appleton project.

Earlier in that month, OSHA fined two contractors after a 51-year-old painting contractor died on a residential apartment complex project in Cleveland.

In February, OSHA fined a Massachusetts-based roofing contractor $137,196 for exposing workers to dangerous fall hazards.