Firm fined in scaffolding accident
Posted on Saturday, October 4, 2008
Overloaded scaffolding and undersized bolts contributed to an April accident that resulted in the deaths of three workers who fell into the Arkansas River as they built a water pipeline underneath Interstate 430 near Little Rock, U. S. Department of Labor records show.
Texas-based contractor Oscar Renda Contracting Inc., faces $ 30, 800 in proposed penalties six months after Wulfrango Ruiz, Juan Manuel Flores Silva and Manuel Gonzalez, who also used the name Eleazar Lopez, fell 50 feet into the river when their 5, 000-pound-plus platform detached from a dolly on I-430 and fell into about 20 feet of water.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration within the Labor Department cited the company for eight serious workplace safety violations in connection with the accident, including several citations that raised multiple issues such as whether the scaffolding was designed and inspected to ensure it could handle the weight of workers and equipment.
The three men were installing brackets for two 30-inch water mains, a $ 6. 4 million pipeline project of a larger $ 43 million initiative to increase water capacity for Cabot, Jacksonville, the North Pulaski Waterworks Association and Central Arkansas Water.
Rescue workers eventually recovered Ruiz’s and Silva’s bodies, but not Gonzalez’s. The men weren’t wearing flotation devices designed for high-impact activities, according to the OSHA citations. A fourth worker was not on the scaffold when it fell.
Although the company received the safety citations, the specific cause of the April 2 accident has not been released.
David Trigg, assistant area director for OSHA’s Little Rock office, said agency procedure allows for the release of citations as soon as they are served. The rest of the case file, he said, is not made public until after the agency attempts to negotiate a settlement over an accident’s cause and determines its investigation closed.
“The violations will be addressed, there’s no doubt about that,” said Terry Brem, Oscar Renda Contracting’s safety director. “We don’t agree with them all.”
Brem declined to comment further and said he didn’t know whether the company had responded yet to OSHA’s findings.
The citations reveal what OSHA investigators found, however. For example, swivel bolts connecting the top of the scaffolding to the dolly’s ballast plate were a half-inch smaller than the holes. The size difference allowed the bolts to move vertically within the openings as traffic passed over the bridge.
Also, the scaffold platform and associated hardware were not rated to support the weight of the men and their equipment, and a recommended backup cable system wasn’t attached to the platform, records show. In addition, ropes used in suspending the scaffold platform weren’t inspected before each work shift.
The Texas-based company also failed to ensure that makeshift devices weren’t used on top of scaffold platforms. Investigators reported that the workers used a metal scaffold on top of the platform and at times inserted planks between midrails of the suspended scaffold guardrail system to increase their working level height. Oscar Renda Contracting also was cited for not having a rescue boat immediately available in the area.
The company has 15 working days to contest the citations, which were issued Sept. 24, or pay the $ 30, 800 in proposed penalties. In addition to eight serious violations, the company was cited for not recording the deaths on a log filed later with OSHA.
Each serious violation carries a penalty of $ 7, 000, but it can be reduced, as it was in the case of Oscar Renda Contracting for various reasons, said OSHA spokesman Elizabeth Todd. Reductions depend on the company’s record, size and effort to address violations in “good faith,” she said.
Work on the water-pipe project stopped the day of the accident. The contract with Oscar Renda Contracting is still valid, but a work-stop order can’t be lifted until the company submits an updated construction plan to Central Arkansas Water and the Arkansas Department of Highway and Transportation, said Jim Ferguson, the water utility’s director of engineering.
“We still expect Oscar Renda to complete the job as soon as they can make a determination of what they’re going to do,” Ferguson said. “I would speculate we wouldn’t see anything until the first of the year.” Information for this article was contributed by Jacob Quinn Sanders of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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