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Worksite shut down: Safety investigators order workers out of unshored 14-foot trench
(Muskogee Phoenix (Muskogee, Okla.) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sep. 19--State safety investigators ordered two city employees out of a 14-foot deep trench with no shoring Thursday afternoon and shut down the job for safety reasons.
City Manager Greg Buckley was in meetings Thursday and learned of the work stoppage and safety problem after 5 p.m.
He said the city has projects going on all over town and he will have to investigate the project in question.
"Most definitely, if we're not doing what we need to do to protect our employees, we are most certainly going to correct that," he said. "In general, we need to make sure our employees have the equipment and safety items to do their job."
The workers were trying to repair a sanitary sewer leak that was found after a sink hole developed in front of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp., on East Shawnee and Ridge avenues.
Thomas Reynga, supervisor with the Oklahoma Public Employees Safety and Health Unit of the state Department of Labor had been alerted about 2:30 p.m. as to possible safety violations.
Reynga said then it appeared they were working in violation of federal and state safety rules and at great risk of their life.
"That's pretty hazardous," Reynga said. "It (trench) could collapse at any time."
He said it was more dangerous if the men didn't know what "the soil situation is -- but in the best of conditions, it's hazardous."
Reynga sent investigators to the work site . An investigator has to see the infraction in person, he said. There is no monetary fine for noncompliance, but a job can be ordered halted until shoring is provided, he said.
That is what investigators did shortly after an investigator arrived on site, he said.
Other possible conflicts with state regulations included:
--The trench wasn't dug at a slope, as required by Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements, which the state safety agency mirrors. The pipe being repaired had a 24-inch water main on one side of the trench and telephone cables on the other side, workers said.
--A requirement calls for a plan for digging a trench and shoring by a registered, professional engineer be completed and a copy left at the job site. There was no engineer's plan available, employees said.
City Engineer Steve Almon and City Personnel Manager Les Weston could not be reached for comment Thursday. The two of them and Jo Lynn Pierce, president of the city's non-uniformed employees' union, make up the Employee Safety Committee.
The situation Thursday was serious, Pierce said. She said she had been unable to reach city officials with the authority to do anything about it.
Reynga said his investigators talked with a superintendent and foreman of the work crew, who said there was no shoring and they didn't realize the hole would be that deep.
Reynga said that was no excuse and no one would be going back in that trench without shoring.
"When a truck goes by (the dig site), the ground shakes," employee Robert Pierce said earlier in the day.
Robert Pierce and employee Wesley Hardy said they knew they were in an unsafe situation but didn't have a choice if they wanted to keep their jobs.
Two other employees had gone for some pipe and returned to climb down into the ditch to do some jackhammer work.
"This is very unsafe," Pierce said. "It's an everyday thing -- but we usually don't have this type of ditch. Most of the time it's 5 feet, 6 feet or 7 feet deep at the most."
If the walls of the 14-foot deep trench were to fall in, "that's enough to kill somebody," Pierce said. "Anybody who has to go down that hole is scared."
Complaints in the past about no shoring on deep trenches brought responses that workers needed to do their jobs, Jo Lynn Pierce said.
In at least a decade, the city has not had any shoring available, employees said.
"I've worked here six years and I haven't seen any," Robert Pierce said.
Reach Donna Hales at 918-684-2923 or Click Here to Send Email
To see more of the Muskogee Phoenix or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.muskogeephoenix.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, Muskogee Phoenix, Okla.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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