OSHA finds excavating company exposed employees to trenching hazards at Evans City, Pennsylvania, worksite

Employer name: Mark Mashuda Excavating Inc., 113 Lakeland Drive, Mars, Pennsylvania. The inspection site was the Peachmont Farms Development, Evans City, Pennyslvania, where workers were installing a sewer line.

Citations issued: On September 29, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued two willful one serious safety citations.

Investigation findings: OSHA initiated an inspection on March 31 after being notified of a trench collapse where an employee was rescued after being buried by a collapsing trench wall. Inspectors cited the company because it was installing a sanitary sewer line in an excavation approximately 13 feet deep with inadequate or no protective system in place. Although an eight-foot high trench box was in place in the sewer main trench, it did not adequately protect the 13 foot deep trench. Additional trench boxes were onsite, but were not in use at the time of the incident. The company was also cited because employees were working outside of the trench box and the walls of the excavation were not benched or sloped.

Proposed penalties: $147,000

Quote: "This trench collapse should have never happened. It is completely inexcusable for an excavation contractor not to provide cave in protection for all employees working in trenches," said Christopher Robinson, director of OSHA's Pittsburgh Area Office. "OSHA will not tolerate employers not meeting their legal responsibility."

View the citations: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/MarkMashudaExcavatingInc_1050178.pdf

To ask questions; obtain compliance assistance; file a complaint; or report amputations, eye loss, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency's Pittsburgh Area Office at 412-395-4903.