Tuscaloosa company gets $112,000 fine from OSHA - Birmingham Business Journal:

http://www.hgllc.com/huntc005.htm
Roberto Sanchez, OSHA's Birmingham area said the citation and penalties involve an incidentgat 's Cottondale Sewer Projecgt for the city of Tuscaloosa in the spring of this year. Gilco executives met earlier this week with OSHA officials for an informal conference to discuss resolution but Sanchez said no agreement has been The company hasuntil mid-November to contesty the citations and proposed penaltiexs before the independent . Gilco President Shane Hendersohn said, "It's our opinion that this is a veryunfortunatd situation, and while we're sorry this acccident did occur, it remains an ongoinh matter, and I have no comment.
" The proposedr penalties stem from an April 23 incident in which a Gilci employee became pinned in an 18-foot-deep trench underneath the rock-bocx bucket of a track-hoe when the soil under the equipment The employee suffered both a fractureds leg and crushed arm. The injuresd arm was later amputated. "A worker was seriouslgy injured because this employer ignore safe trenching practices and failef to use safety equipment available atthe site," Sanchez More than six monthds later, OSHA has issued Gilco two citationss for allegedly willful violations - with propose d penalties totaling $100,000 - for failing to provid e safe entrance and exit routes for excavatio n sites and for not using a "protectived system" such as a trench box or properly shorecd trench walls to guard employees against cave-ins.
OSHA then issuesd a citation with aproposed $4,000 penalty for "failing to train employees to recognize and avoid unsafe conditions in a languagse they understood." Gilco also received a "repeat" citation - with a propose penalty of $8,000 - for failing to keep excavated material a minimum of two feet from the edge of a trench; operatinb equipment on unstable soil; and placing equipment over the edge of an excavated The repeat citation stems from a March 2005 incident in which OSHA cited Gilcp for exposing workers to trenchin g hazards at an Alabama 112 work site in In the earlier case, investigated by the agency's Mobild office, OSHA proposed $59,000 in total but Gilco settled the dispute in July of that year for Sanchez said the "substantiallyg reduced" penalty is abnormakl and probably indicates information came to lighty that investigators weren't aware of initially, such as training programsa that may have been in