Colorado Company Fined $31K for Fatal Trench Collapse
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined an excavation company for the deaths of two Colorado workers who were trapped for hours in a collapsed trench.
The Fort Collins Coloradoan reported Friday that Firestone-based Backhoe Excavating was fined $31,446 for five citations. The largest fine was more than $13,000 for failing to provide an adequate protective system for the workers, 26-year-old Cristopher Ramirez, of Boulder, and 41-year-old Jorge Valadez, of Denver.
The company also received two citations totaling more than $10,000 for not following specific excavation requirements.
The workers were installing sewer pipe in a 15-foot-deep (4.5-meter-deep) trench in Windsor on April 16 when it gave way. They were dead when emergency crews reached them.
Crews had used a PVC pipe to communicate with one of the men during the rescue effort.
From Archive
- Oil pipeline struck during fiber optic construction spills into L.A. storm drains
- Utility strike at center of Dallas explosion investigation
- Gas line strike destroys three homes in Ohio neighborhood
- $1 billion Ohio River Tunnel project awarded in Pittsburgh
- Las Vegas advances multibillion-dollar water pipeline expansion
- When and why manhole rehabilitation is critical to sewer system performance
- Inside Infrastructure: Utility locators warn of systemic failures in damage prevention process
- Senate passes PIPELINE Safety Act aimed at strengthening buried utility protection
- $104 million Lynchburg, Va., tunnel nears breakthrough beneath Blackwater Creek
Comments