Dive Brief:

• The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has cited Birmingham, AL, contractor Stephens Plumbing, Inc. for one willful and four serious excavation and trenching safety violations. The agency fined the company $43,800.
• OSHA said it began its investigation into Stephens' job site when an agency inspector saw workers in an unprotected trench.
• OSHA safety standards mandate that trenches and excavations 5 feet or deeper have sidewall collapse safeguards like shoring, adequate soil sloping or a trench box.

Dive Insight:

OSHA said the willful citation it issued Stephens is for permitting its employees to work, without appropriate cave-in protection, in trenches up to 10-feet deep. The serious violations, the agency said, were for:

• Not properly training employees on cave-in hazards
• Failing to provide safe exit and entry from the excavation
• Failing to place excavated soil away from the trench opening
• Permitting employees to work in an excavation in which water had accumulated

As high as the fines for violations like these are, they're about to get higher. OSHA announced last year that it will raise its fines in August 2016 for the first time since 1990 in order become current with the Consumer Price Index. Analysts have estimated that fines could increase by as much as 80%.

In February, OSHA also cited and fined Texas contractor Hurtado Construction, like Stephens, for failing to prevent employees from working in trenches that had accumulations of water. Amidst those and other violations, OSHA fined Hurtado $86,240.

In another incident in Pennsylvania, OSHA fined bridge repair company Susquehanna Supply Company Inc. $140,000 for violations related to a trench collapse in which one of its employees died. According to OSHA, the worker was buried in a 12-foot to 15-foot trench when an adjacent trench wall collapsed. OSHA also placed Susquehanna in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program.

In another case late last year, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development fined Alaska contractor Hartman Construction $560,000 for a trench collapse that resulted in a worker death. The employee actually survived the collapse but Hartman employees fatally injured him while trying to execute a rescue with two excavators.