Page 30 - Occupational Health & Safety, October 2019

CONSTRUCTION
Staying Safe in the Trenches
How to ensure your employees don’t become statistics.
BY TIM ROBSON
To be buried alive, crushed, is an unimagi- nable fate; as little as two cubic yards of dirt collapsing into a six-foot-deep trench has the same force as a pickup truck moving 45 miles per hour. But trench collapse is all too common, and death and serious injury befall hundreds of workers across the United States every year.
Unfortunately, the problem is getting worse: 2016 saw as many trench deaths as years 2014 and 2015 combined. Why? A booming economy is driving more construction, and there is also a serious lack of awareness of the risks of trenching among companies and workers (and sometimes corner-cutting to save time and money). All of these factors combine to put lives at significant risk.
The private construction industry accounted for 80 percent of all fatalities that occurred during the most recent timeframe for which data is available (2011 through 2016). Within the construction indus- try, 38 percent of those fatalities were at industrial lo- cations, 30 percent were at residential locations, and 20 percent were at street/highway sites.
OSHA has recently responded to the rise in deaths by launching a National Emphasis Program on Trench and Excavation in October 2018. The purpose of this program is to increase awareness of safe practices and to step-up enforcement.
Construction companies need to take the safety regulations around trench work seriously if they want to ensure their job sites are not liabilities and that their
workers don’t become statistics. This article will ad- dress the legal requirements involving trench work as well as answer some of the most frequently asked questions about trench safety.
Trenching vs. Excavation:
OSHA Requirements and More
According to OSHA, excavation and trenching are among the most hazardous construction operations. Cave-ins pose the greatest risk and are much more likely than other excavation-related accidents to result in worker fatalities. Other potential hazards include falls, falling loads, hazardous atmospheres, and in- cidents involving mobile equipment. The regulation that covers requirements for excavation and trenching operations is OSHA 29 CFR 1926.650-652.
People often question the differences between an excavation and a trench. OSHA defines an excavation as “any man-made cut, cavity, trench, or depression in the earth’s surface formed by earth removal.” This can include excavations for anything from cellars to high- ways. A trench is a specific type of excavation that, by definition, is deeper than it is wide, and no wider than 15 feet at the bottom of the excavation.
Trenches are vastly more dangerous than excava- tions due to their propensity to collapse. As a result, and in a perfect world, OSHA would prefer all digs to be excavations and not trenches. But, of course, this is not possible. So much construction, especially in densely populated areas, must be done near roadways or existing structures. Thus, trenches are often nar- row, deep, and potentially very dangerous.
In the world of trenching, there are two overarch- ing keys to maintaining a safe job site: your competent person and your preplan.
Competent Person: Your MVP
OSHA requires that a competent person evaluate the safety of every trench or excavation every day, every time a person is to enter, or if conditions at a job site change. OSHA defines a competent person as “one who is capable of identifying existing and predictable hazards in the surroundings or working conditions which are unsanitary, hazardous, or dangerous to em- ployees, and who has the authorization to take prompt corrective measures to eliminate them.”
It is the competent person’s job to evaluate all of the components that can impact the safety of a trench. These include soil type, weather, nearby utility lines, adjacent structures (roads, railways, etc. and their po- tential to cause vibrations that result in trench insta-
26 Occupational Health & Safety | OCTOBER 2019
www.ohsonline.com