Excavation Firm Faces $250K in Penalties Over Fatal Trench Collapse
- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed $254,884 in penalties against Jonas David Wagoner, doing business as J.D. Wagoner Excavating, for willful and serious violations after a trench collapse killed one of his workers on April 2 at a construction site in Hamilton Township, Pa.
- OSHA found employees were installing a storm sewer about 12 feet below ground in a trench not adequately protected from collapse. When part of the trench wall failed, soil engulfed Martin.
- The agency cited one willful violation for failing to protect workers from cave-ins and two repeat violations for failing to assign a competent person to conduct daily trench inspections and for failing to remove employees from hazardous conditions.
- OSHA also levied three serious violations, including failure to provide hazard prevention training, to establish a safe means of exiting the excavation and to keep materials at least two feet from the edge and restrain roll-in hazards.
Steel Supply Worker Dies after Early Morning Accident
- A worker for Siskin Steel and Supplies in Louisville, Ky died after a workplace incident in the early morning of Oct. 7, according to the Jefferson County Coroner’s office.
- Pleasure Ridge Park Fire and EMS found the worker with multiple blunt force injuries to his lower body and took him to UofL Hospital, where he died an hour later.
- The Louisville Metro Police Homicide Unit was notified and has taken over the investigation. The circumstances of the accident have not been released.
- Siskin Steel and Supplies is a metal services distributor that supplies industrial metal products to equipment manufacturers.
Study: Gas-Fired Restaurant Kitchens Expose Workers to Pollution, Extreme Heat
- About 70% of the restaurant gas-fire kitchens exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s one-hour outdoor standard for nitrogen dioxide exposure during working hours, a new study has found. The peer-reviewed study in Environmental Research Letters, by PSE Healthy Energy, Stanford and New York University researchers, also found that none of the all-electric kitchens studied exceeded health guidelines for pollution during cooking hours.
- High temperatures topped 90 degrees in about 68% of the gas kitchens with, which is the proposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration high-heat threshold. Ten exceeded 100 degrees and four exceeded 122 degrees.
- In one kitchen, a 15-minute nitrogen dioxide average topped 1,000 parts per billion, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s recommended short-term workplace limit.
- About 71% of the gas kitchens monitored overnight had higher pollution levels with ventilation off and pilot lights lit than during service, raising concerns for cleaning crews and early-arriving staff.