The natural-gas pipeline explosion that killed at least four people and destroyed 38 homes on Sept. 9 in San Bruno, Calif., has prompted the California Public Utilities Commission to come down hard on the pipeline owner, San Francisco-based PG&E. Photo: AP/Noah Berger Federal investigators are shipping a gas-pipe segment back to Washington, D.C., to study California’s fatal Sept. 9 pipeline blast. In a letter to PG&E President Christopher Johns, the agency directed the utility to take a number of remedial measures: conduct an integrity assessment of all gas facilities near the blast site; perform an “accelerated” leak survey of all
Dena Parsons wants to know why something suddenly hit her husband in the head, killing him and injuring a co-worker at a construction site in Oklahoma City on Aug. 31. Photo: Dena Parsons Mike Parsons liked fishing, shopping and watching movies with his family. He was 42. “Somebody was at fault,” says Parsons, 36, of El Reno, Okla. “Stuff doesn’t just fall off a crane.” While working on a crane’s jib at about 8:30 p.m., an unknown object struck Michael Glenn “Mike” Parsons, 42, a certified crane operator at Rent-A-Crane, Oklahoma City. The co-worker, also an employee of the rental
Three days after a contractors’ trade group requested more time to comply with new federal crane-safety regulations, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration nevertheless plans to begin enforcing the standard on Nov. 8, as scheduled. Photo: OSHA Regulators plan to enforce new crane rules as scheduled on Nov. 8. Related Links: Builders Want To Push Back Crane-Safety Rules “The standard was published on Aug. 9 and goes into effect within 90 days,” writes Diana Petterson, federal OSHA spokeswoman, in an Aug. 31 e-mail to ENR. On Aug. 27, the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) sent a letter to OSHA
Associated Builders and Contractors has issued a letter to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration seeking to delay Nov. 8 implementation of landmark crane-safety rules. In the letter, ABC “formally requests that the effective date of the work practice provisions contained in the rule be changed to 90 days from the availability of a reasonable set of compliance resources, rather than 90 days from publication of the final rule.” The letter is signed by Craig Shaffer, president of SafetyWorks Inc., Dillsburg, Pa., and chairman of ABC’s health and safety committee. The trade group, based in Arlington, Va., contends that
Construction workplace deaths continued to decline in 2009, but the fatality rate held even with the previous year’s mark, and industry safety specialists see little sign that conditions are improving on project sites nationwide. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest annual census of fatal occupational injuries, released on Aug. 19, shows construction deaths last year totaled 816, down 16% from 975 in 2008. But with the volume of construction work in a slump, the industry’s fatality rate last year was the same as 2008’s level, at 9.7 per 100,000 full-time workers. BLS reported that construction hours worked fell 17% in
A construction worker was killed at the Gilcrease Expressway expansion site in Tulsa, Okla., on August 16 when a piece of heavy equipment rolled down a steep hill and crushed him. Noe Mendoza, 45, an employee of Plains Bridge Contracting of Yukon, Okla., was found by emergency responders. Mendoza was hit by a 120,000-lb road spreader, with a big diesel-driven scraper to pick up pavement, and declared dead at the scene, says Bill French, spokesman for the Tulsa Fire Dept. Tulsa Police Dept. public information officer Leland Ashley said the machine that killed Medoza was a Caterpillar 621G wheel tractor-scraper.
URS Corp., San Francisco, agreed on Aug. 23 to pay $52.4 million to settle claims filed against it on behalf of victims in the August 2007 collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. Photo AP/WideWorld The accident killed 13 people and injured 145 others. URS says it agreed to the pact, under which it admits no liability or fault, to avoid a lengthy trial that was to start next year. Plaintiffs claimed the company had missed signs of structural stresses on the bridge during a pre-accident inspection, but URS has said it was not involved in the span’s design or
The number of construction deaths declined 16% in 2009, but with the volume of construction work down, the industry's fatality rate remained flat, the Dept. of Labor has reported. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest annual census of fatal occupational injuries, released Aug. 19, reports that construction deaths totaled 816 last year, down from 975 in 2008. But the 2009 fatality rate, which takes account of shifts in industry activity, showed no improvement, holding even with 2008, at 9.7 per 100,000 full-time workers. BLS says, "Economic conditions may explain much of this decline" in the number of construction jobsite fatalities,
Even as U.K.-based oil giant BP remains in the U.S. government’s crosshairs for environmental damage resulting from the Deepwater Horizon drill-rig explosion that killed 11 workers April 20, it now faces record fines and new scrutiny over another fatal accident five years ago at a land-based company facility in Texas. Photo: Courtesy of U.S. Occupational Safety And Health Administration. Explosion in 2005 killed 15 contractor employees and injured 170 others at Texas City site. OSHA’s fine is the highest single penalty ever to be issued for a single event. Photo: Courtesy of U.S. Occupational Safety And Health Administration In addition
Researchers reported results of two key studies—one on using real-time technology to reduce the danger of working around construction equipment and another on the impact of project-site leadership on safety—to the Construction Industry Institute’s annual conference held Aug. 4-5 in Orlando, Fla. Photo: Courtesy Of Georgia Institute Of Technology Warning device worn by a worker (below) approaching a danger zone emits a signal picked up by a device in the equipment’s cab (above). Photo: Courtesy Of Georgia Institute Of Technology MCKINNEY Several safety-related topics were discussed at the event, including technology-based safety, which members and academics are researching in an
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